


Heart of Darkness

by Kitschisme



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Closet Sex, Cunnilingus, Dirty Talk, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, First Time, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gryffindor vs. Slytherin Rivalry, Hand Jobs, Invisibility Cloak (Harry Potter), Light BDSM, Making Out, Mutual Masturbation, Patronus Charm (Harry Potter), Power Dynamics, Room of Requirement, Secret Relationship, Sexual Experimentation, Sexual Tension, Soulmate Bond, Spanking, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:36:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24306031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitschisme/pseuds/Kitschisme
Summary: There’s astrangenessin the air. Rey can smell it, like the charge after an electrical storm. She can practically eventasteit, the residual energy buzzing across her tongue like a drug. She shivers.And then she sees Kylo, standing several feet away, wand still clutched tightly, chest heaving. His eyes burn into her like dark coals, reflecting soft, glowing embers as they rain down from the surrounding trees that had caught fire.In a moment of pure delirium, Rey thinks he's the most terrifyingly beautiful thing she’s ever seen.He takes her breath away.--Rey had known – and mostly,disliked– Kylo Ren since her very first day at Hogwarts. As a Slytherin he was her natural enemy, despite their strange connection. But then Kylo saves her life... and things get a lot more complicated.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 167
Kudos: 314





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Self-proclaimed Reylo ship and HP nerd. I love this AU pairing and once I got the idea in my head I simply had to write it. 
> 
> This will be a multi-chapter with a healthy dose of plot, but plenty of angst, fluff (and smut!) later on. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy. Thanks so much for reading! 🦁 ❤ 🐍

In retrospect, Rey knew it had been a _really_ terrible idea.

The Seventh Year Challenge was something of a hallowed Hogwarts tradition. In some respects, even more prestigious and competitive than the annual House Cup. Amongst the students, anyway.

Of course, being in Gryffindor, she and her housemates never did anything by half. And there were few things that Hogwarts students feared more than the dark and shadowy forest looming at the edge of the castle grounds.

Throughout her prior six years at Hogwarts, Rey had ventured into the Forbidden Forest on several occasions. She was old enough now to understand that the Forest was home to creatures equally as ethereal as they were dangerous; but she knew well enough to be extremely wary of the latter.

She also knew well enough to never go in without the company of Chewbacca, Hogwart’s gamekeeper – or, more accurately, without Chewie and his crossbow.

And she never - _never_ \- strayed from the Forest path. _That_ was one directive Chewie had been absolutely crystal clear about.

Chewie – who had always been extremely kind and gentle toward Rey – protective, even – seemed to intimidate most of the other students with his seven-foot frame and wild mess of matted brown hair. He was not the type to scare easily. Rey knew to take his warning seriously.

She knew all of this. But once Finn had heard the myth of an ancient Yew tree at the Forest’s center, carved with the initials of those brave enough to reach it, once he had gotten the idea of finding it into his head… It had been impossible to talk him out of it.

“ _Ouch!_ ” hisses the irritated voice of her best friend. “Rey, quit stomping on me with your giant _feet_.”

“Sorry,” she mutters. It occurs to her, as they creep secretly and silently across the grounds, as they had done countless times before, that it had been much easier to fit both of them under her invisibility cloak when they were little.

Rey would never forget her eleventh birthday, the day she had learned she was a witch. It was, in her estimation, the day her life truly began. The day she left behind a childhood of neglect and abject poverty and began a life where she was _special_. She had _power_. She was _someone_.

The day Chewie came to collect her from the filthy Muggle trailer park, their subsequent trip to Diagon Alley to collect her school things, her very first time seeing Hogwart’s castle with torches ablaze… It had all felt like a dream.

Then and now, there was only one word Rey could think of to describe it.

Pure magic.

Rey would also never forget the day she’d turned twelve, when a post owl had delivered an unmarked parcel containing the mysterious cloak to her during breakfast in the Great Hall. There was no note attached, no way of knowing who had sent it.

It was the first time Rey had ever received a birthday present. The first time she ever had friends to sing for her and eat cake. Unkar Plutt, her Muggle foster father, had never once remembered or acknowledged her birthday. And she had no memory of any of her birthdays before that.

There were many things Rey loved about Hogwarts. But the one thing she cherished most of all was the friendships she had made there, Finn’s friendship chief among them.

From her very first trip aboard the Hogwarts Express, where they had shared a train compartment and a game of Exploding Snaps, to the moment they both were placed by the Sorting Hat into Gryffindor, they had been inseparable.

Inseparable, but always in the _platonic_ sense. It had driven Rey mad, the constant rumors that she and Finn were dating. Until – _finally_ \- Finn managed to get himself a proper girlfriend, the summer after fifth year.

The third body hiding beneath the cloak belongs to Rose Tico. Rose is Finn's girlfriend. And, therefore, goes everywhere that Finn does, despite being sorted into Hufflepuff. Rey, in all honesty, doesn't mind having Rose around. Over time, she and the other girl had even formed their own friendship.

Rose on occasion would shoo Finn away, announcing that it was “girl time.” This annoyed him greatly, which for Rey made it all the more enjoyable. Rey had never been interested in clothes or makeup or talking about boys, but it was just – _nice_ – to have a female friend to talk to.

These friendships had more than made up for eleven years of isolation and loneliness. Rey smiled wistfully at the memories, but then immediately felt a pang of sadness. This would be her last year at Hogwarts, the final year to spend with her friends.

Now that she could actually count the days until graduation, Rey felt an anxiety growing in the pit of her stomach. Anxiety about struggling to find her place in the wizarding world outside of school, about losing touch with these people who meant so much to her.

 _She would not allow that to happen_ , Rey thought fiercely. Finn and Rose… they were her family. Nothing would ever change that.

Their invisible huddle comes to a stop as they approach the edge of the forest. Rey pulls the cloak off, stuffing it hastily into her bag.

“ _Lumos_ ,” she whispers. The light from her Aspen wand illuminates the darkness, casting long and eerie shadows from tall trees across the grounds.

Rose, beside her, is shaking like a leaf. “So… We’re _really_ doing this?”

Finn looks back, grinning at her over his shoulder. He reaches out to squeeze her hand. “Don’t worry, babe. It’s going to be brilliant.”

 _Famous last words_ , Rey thinks wryly. But she does her best to smile at Rose reassuringly.

The three of them set out as they begin to make their way along the path that disappears beyond the tree line, wands held aloft.

There has always been something about this part of the Forest that Rey finds herself drawn to. The cool, shaded overhead canopy of crisscrossed tree branches, the smell of fresh earth and damp oak moss, the sound of crickets chirping, a nearby creek bubbling. It was… _soothing_ , in a way. 

Rey inhales deeply through her nose, breathing in the crisp forest air. She holds it, then releases her breath slowly. She repeats the process several more times, tightening her grip on her wand, _willing_ herself to be calm.

The continue on in silence for several more minutes, Rey bringing up the rear of their procession while her friends walk several paces ahead. Rose is clinging desperately to Finn’s side, and it reminds Rey absurdly of a Hinkypunk glued to a lamppost. 

Before she can snort at the hilarious mental image, Finn comes to an abrupt halt.

“I heard something,” he says sharply, holding his wand out to illuminate the darkness. “Over there.”

And before Rey can say anything, before she can even reach a hand out to stop him, Finn steps forward and off the path, taking Rose with him.

 _Dammit_.

Rey has no choice but to follow, not wanting to become separated; but her sense of unease increases exponentially with every step. They’ve not gone very far at all when suddenly she hears it, too. A rustling of leaves. A low murmuring.

Rey tenses as she catches slight movement in her peripheral vision. She doesn’t hesitate.

Her cry of “ _Stupefy_!” is met with a much deeper “ _Expelliarmus_!” as sparks fly in all directions. When the airs clears, two Gryffindors and a Hufflepuff face off with three Slytherins, all six wands pointed directly at each other’s throats.

Rey recognizes them, even in the dim light. In the middle is the hulking figure of Marcus Zekk, Beater on the Slytherin Quidditch team. Next to him is Bazine Netal, a seventh-year girl known for being as beautiful as she was ruthless, with her striking eyes and high cheekbones. And the tall boy standing behind them silently as a shadow is, unmistakably, Kylo Ren.

Rey had known – and mostly, _disliked_ – Kylo since her very first day at Hogwarts. There were few things she hated about the wizarding world, and he embodied _all_ of them.

Gryffindor and Slytherin were natural enemies. Playing against Kylo as Seeker for their House Quidditch teams as well as enrolling in many of the same OWL and NEWT level courses had over the years nurtured a fairly intense rivalry.

But Rey’s dislike of him ran much deeper. There were some in the wizarding world who viewed Muggleborns – like Rey – as inferior, unworthy of magic. There were rumors about Kylo’s pureblood family having ties to the First Order, an extremist group that had waged a campaign of terror against Muggles and Muggleborns only several decades previous.

Worst of all, even _worse_ somehow than his questionable family ties, was his general countenance. Cold and severe, with his long, pale face and raven colored hair. Kylo was haughty and arrogant, full of disdain for everything and everyone. He made Rey feel like she offended him with her mere existence.

Rey knew she was better than him on any given day. In the classroom _and_ on the Quidditch pitch. She made it her personal mission to remind him at every opportunity - that, despite all of his privilege and wealth - he was constantly being bested by a poor, obscure Muggleborn nobody.

In the darkness, Rey feels Kylo’s eyes snap to hers like a magnet. He gives her a small nod in acknowledgment.

She looks away.

“Oi,” Zekk is the first to break the tense silence. “Bugger off, you lot. This is _our_ Challenge.”

“We got here _first_ ,” growls Finn.

Zekk takes a threatening step forward, which Finn eagerly would have reciprocated had it not been for Rose pulling back against his sleeve, looking terrified.

“Be quiet, _both of you_ ,” Rey commands sharply. “ _Listen_.”

It was less a particular noise and more the total absence of it. The Forest had gone completely silent. Not a single living creature made a sound. Even the wind had gone still and quiet.

Something was wrong. _Very_ wrong.

It was then Rey smelled it in the air. An odor that was strange; sharp and metallic. _Fresh blood_.

Rey followed her senses, vision traveling beyond the group of Slytherins to a nearby clearing, where it landed on something massive and feral-looking.

It was hunched in the center of what looked to be a pile of dead animal carcasses. The crunch of bone and the squelch of ripping flesh were now audible as it feasted on the carcass of whatever poor creature had been its last meal.

All eyes were fixed to the spot where she was looking now, their faces frozen in horror.

“What,” Finn croaked, his voice shaking, “the _bloody hell_ is _that_?”

The creature before them was an amalgam of seemingly disparate, terrifying features.

For one thing, it had _three heads_.

The creature somehow possessed the head and front claws of a lion, the head, body, and back legs of a goat, and a scaled reptilian tail, vertebrate lined with pointed barbs, ending at its tip in a sleek, serpentine head.

“It’s a Chimaera,” Rey breathed.

She’d recognized it immediately from her old copy of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ ; but the book’s illustration could never have prepared her for seeing this particular beast up close.

No… _nothing_ could have prepared her for the six pairs of eyes that glowed unnatural red, piercing through the darkness. Not to mention the three distinct sets of _teeth_ all filed into sharp points.

It was absurd. It was _impossible_. And yet, there it was before them.

Every single hair on the back of Rey’s neck was standing on end. Her nerve endings prickled with fear. _Danger_ , they screamed. _Run_.

All six of them had started to move as one, slowly but steadily backing away from the clearing. _If they could just make it to the tree line without it noticing them, they might have a chance of escaping…_

Rey winces as a branch or twig breaks under the weight of someone’s foot, the loud _snap_ reverberating with harsh finality through the air as if it were a canon blast.

 _Shit_.

The creature’s three heads look up in their direction, narrowing otherworldly eyes and baring its many teeth in a vicious snarl.

Then all hell broke loose.

🎇🎇🎇

Rey is running, faster and harder than she’s ever run in her lifetime. Her heart is jack-hammering against her rib cage, lungs gasping from exertion.

She can just make out the edge of the tree line. They’re _so_ close. Finn’s hand is gripping hers like a tether, pulling her along to safety.

Rey doesn’t know why. Really, she doesn't. But she twists around at the last second to look back over her shoulder and is shocked to see Kylo still back in the clearing. Whether paralyzed by fear or transfixed by the Chimaera, she can't be sure. All she knows is in that moment the beast opens its jaws to release a billowing cloud of flames.

 _Right_ , she remembers weakly. _Chimaeras breathe fire_.

Kylo barely makes it away alive, throwing up a _Protego_ shield charm just long enough to avoid an early funeral pyre and scramble behind a large rock.

He was battling the beast by himself. And he was losing. _Badly_.

Without thinking, Rey relaxes her grip on Finn’s fingers. She feels them slip away from her.

“Rey! _REY!_ ” she hears Finn shouting her name repeatedly, but he sounds strangely far away.

Finn’s voice soon disappears completely along with him and Rose beyond the tree line. But her traitorous legs refuse to follow them.

Rey thinks of Kylo. She thinks of his pale and haughty features, his cold aloofness, his elitism, his arrogance.

But there are other memories, too. Deeply buried. Things that she is more reluctant to remember.

Of a small, black haired boy crouched under a tree near the Black Lake, using magic to heal a bird’s broken wing.

A slightly older version of the boy, not joining in when his friends made fun of her for her secondhand books and robes, her tattered school bag.

That same boy, in the present day, who Rey sometimes caught looking at her with a gentle curiosity. Like she was a fascinating puzzle he could not seem to solve.

And in that moment, Rey makes her decision.

She can’t leave him.

Her limbs taking on a mind of their own once more, Rey breaks into a run again. This time sprinting _away_ from the safety of the tree line and _toward_ her most loathsome enemy, who at the moment is battling – _unsuccessfully_ – with an ancient, terrifying monster.

At some point, she really needed to begin evaluating her life choices.

Kylo looks up at her approach. Several emotions seem to cross his face in rapid succession; shock, confusion, hope, fear. And finally, _anger_.

“What the _hell_ are you doing, Niima?” He demands, jerking his head in the direction of the castle. “Go with the others. I can handle it.”

Kylo is clutching his left arm. Rey can see the skin is badly burned beneath the singed fabric of his dress shirt.

She eyes the injury, which looks painfully raw and oozing. “Oh, yes. Seems like you have things _perfectly_ handled.”

Before he can issue a retort, Rey spots movement in the corner of her vision. The Chimaera is rearing its head back for another fiery blow, and she reacts instinctively.

Rey points her wand directly at Kylo. _“Levicorpus!”_

His body soars straight up into the air, as if it weighs nothing. The Chimaera’s massive fireball makes contact and scorches the patch of earth where Kylo’s feet had been planted only moments previously.

Rey breathes a sigh of relief. The beast roars, stamping the ground and thrashing its many heads in frustration. It sniffs at the air, attempting to locate its missing prey.

Kylo, meanwhile, is dangling one-armed from a large tree branch, twenty feet or so above the forest floor. He lets go, landing in a crouch with a sinuous grace that’s almost catlike.

He straightens. His expression is unreadable, but Rey detects a hint of grudging admiration. “Thank you,” he says, looking directly into her eyes.

Before Rey can respond, the beast is coming at them again. Now the battle begins in earnest.

It’s nothing like the dueling demonstrations they’d had in their fifth, or even sixth, years. Even with two of them fighting together against one creature, the Chimaera’s many heads make their opponent especially difficult to manage.

Kylo’s Blackthorn wand issues an easily recognizable _Incarcerous_ spell, casting a net of firm ropes to bind the creature. The Chimaera breaks through the restraints easily - but falls back again when Rey shoots a well-aimed _Conjunctivitis_ curse from beneath Kylo’s arm. The creature claws at its face, howling with rage.

“Nice one,” he murmurs.

To her surprise, Rey finds that she and the Slytherin boy are compatible dueling partners. They move naturally as counterparts - almost like a complex, violent dance - each anticipating the other’s movements wordlessly.

Kylo lunges forward at exactly the same moment she leans back, and Rey leverages herself against his body to kick the goat’s head squarely in its jaw.

“ _That_ one, I learned from Muggles,” she tells him breathlessly.

And Kylo, Kylo _bloody_ Ren – Slytherin Head Boy, elitist snob, Mr. Grumpy, Hogwart’s resident doom and gloom contingent - laughs. Actually _laughs_. Not with his usual tight-lipped facsimile of a smile, but with a grin wide enough to show his teeth, eyes crinkling at the corners.

Rey is momentarily transfixed by the sight. His face is so utterly transformed by the change in his expression that Rey finds herself wondering if she had ever truly seen him before.

It was an addictive high, dueling like this. The danger, the rush, the adrenaline. Despite herself, Rey finds that she is grinning back at him; she can tell Kylo is equally as affected by it as she is.

Side by side, their movements perfectly in sync, they each issue a _Reducto_ curse at exactly the same moment. Rey feels an intense surge of power, the energy from their wand tips joining together in a single stream of blue light powerful enough to knock the Chimaera backwards.

Rey exhales shakily, residual currents of their combined magic still tingling throughout her extended forearm.

 _What_ had just happened?

She fleetingly recalls something Headmaster Kenobi had observed in their second year, about her wand and Kylo’s having twin phoenix feather cores. Was it possible that their wands were _communicating_? As if they _recognized_ each other?

In all her study of wandlore, Rey had never seen or heard of such a thing. She pushes the thought aside; it was clearly ridiculous.

But as she turns to look at Kylo, and he gazes back at her, it’s clear from the look on his face that he is asking himself the exact same question.

It’s in this particular moment that Rey has the unfortunate occasion to remember one of the most important rules of wizard dueling: _Never_ stop, _never_ lose focus, until your opponent is completely down.

She gasps as a sharp pain slices through the side of her leg. She looks down to where the fangs of the Chimaera’s serpent head tail head are buried deep within her thigh.

Rey staggers, and the Chimaera takes the opportunity in her moment of weakness to slash its leonine claws across her back. She falls to the ground where she is immediately pinned, the animal’s brute strength pressing down into her sternum, constricting her windpipe.

Three sets of glowing red eyes loom over her in the darkness. The lion head’s teeth are bared in a snarl, jowls dripping with saliva. A numbness is spreading rapidly through Rey’s leg, and she remembers, dully, that a Chimaera’s serpent fangs are venomous.

Above her, the snake tail rears its head back for another attack. _A death blow_ , Rey realizes. She was going to die here. She squeezes her eyes shut, willing herself to be brave. Her muscles tense for a final strike… that never comes.

Distantly, she registers Kylo’s voice. “ _SECTUMSEMPRA_!” he bellows. There is a glow of red light, a scream of pain from the Chimaera, a loud _thud_ to the ground, and then… nothing.

Several heartbeats later, Rey opens her eyes and finds herself looking up at the night sky full of stars. She pushes herself shakily onto hands and knees before finally struggling to her feet. She is unsteady, disoriented. An insistent ringing in her ears, as if a bomb had detonated.

There’s a _strangeness_ in the air. Rey can smell it, like the charge after an electrical storm. She can practically even _taste_ it, the residual energy buzzing across her tongue like a drug. She shivers.

And then she sees Kylo, standing several feet away, wand still clutched tightly, chest heaving. His eyes burn into her like dark coals, reflecting soft, glowing embers as they rain down from the surrounding trees that had caught fire.

In a moment of pure delirium, Rey thinks he's the most terrifyingly beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

He takes her breath away.

A low keening noise snaps her attention back to the ground, where the Chimaera lays pitifully curled in on itself. The creature is in agony, clearly dying. The scene is grotesque; deep gashes cover every inch of its body, a huge pool of dark blood seeping steadily into the soil.

Rey turns away from the image, thinking she might be sick.

It was unmistakably dark magic.

Everything comes suddenly into sharp focus, hitting her all at once. The battle, their wands connecting, Kylo’s dark spell, her injuries. Pain, shock, exhaustion.

It was all too much.

Rey feels her legs give way as she stumbles forward. Her vision has gone blurry. The last thing she sees before blacking out is Kylo’s concerned face and an arm reaching out to catch her.

“Monster,” she whispers. And then everything was darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Star Wars References:**   
>  [Rey](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rey_Skywalker)   
>  [Chewbacca](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Chewbacca)   
>  [Finn](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Finn)   
>  [Rose Tico](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rose_Tico)   
>  [Zekk](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Zekk)   
>  [Bazine Netal](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bazine_Netal)   
>  [Kylo Ren](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ben_Solo)   
>  [First Order](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/First_Order)   
>  [Obi Wan Kenobi](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Obi-Wan_Kenobi)
> 
> **Harry Potter References:**   
>  [Forbidden Forest](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Forbidden_Forest)   
>  [Diagon Alley](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Diagon_Alley)   
>  [Great Hall](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Hall)   
>  [Owl Post](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Owl_Postal_Service)   
>  [Hogwarts Express](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Hogwarts_Express)   
>  [Gryffindor](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Gryffindor)   
>  [Hufflepuff](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Hufflepuff)   
>  [Hinkypunk](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Hinkypunk)   
>  [Lumos](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Lumos_Maxima)   
>  [Stupefy](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Stunning_Spell)   
>  [Expelliarmus](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Disarming_Charm)   
>  [Slytherin](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Slytherin)   
>  [Quidditch](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Quidditch)   
>  [Seeker](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Seeker)   
>  [OWL](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Ordinary_Wizarding_Level)   
>  [NEWT](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Nastily_Exhausting_Wizarding_Test)   
>  [Muggleborn](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Muggle-born)   
>  [Chimaera](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Chimaera)   
>  [Fantastic Beasts](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Fantastic_Beasts_and_Where_to_Find_Them)   
>  [Protego](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Shield_Charm)   
>  [Levicorpus](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Levicorpus)   
>  [Incarcerous](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Incarcerous_Spell)   
>  [Conjunctivitis](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Conjunctivitis_Curse)   
>  [Reducto](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Reductor_Curse)   
>  [Sectumsempra](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Sectumsempra)   
> 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I was so nervous to post that first chapter and your enthusiastic response made me feel brave enough to post another! Thank you for the lovely kudos and comments - they really make my day!
> 
> I hope you enjoy. Thanks so much for reading! 🦁 ❤ 🐍

Consciousness returns to Rey in pieces. Soft blurs of light, fragments of sound. She registers a distant voice that murmurs, “ _Enervate_ ,” as the subtle warmth of a reviving spell blooms throughout her chest.

When Rey finally manages to open her eyes, she sees swooping stone archways, flickering torchlight, panes on leaded windows with tinted glass. She allows herself to relax. She was inside, safely within the castle.

“Welcome back, Miss Niima,” says the voice of Harter Kalonia, Hogwarts Matron and Healer.

Madame Kalonia helps Rey to sit up. Once she is fully upright, she finds that her head is throbbing. Every inch of her body hurts. “ _What -_ ” she croaks, but her voice is raspy as a bullfrog’s, dry like sandpaper.

“Drink,” commands Madame Kalonia, thrusting a silver goblet into Rey’s hand. She accepts it gratefully, downing a potion that smells like herbs and tastes like licorice.

The scratchiness in her throat is immediately soothed, her headache lessened. Rey puts the drained goblet aside and settles back against the pillows, taking in the small group stationed like a vigil around her bedside.

The first person she sees is Mon Mothma, Head of Gryffindor House and Transfiguration Professor. Regal, tall and statuesque, Mothma looks down at Rey with a combination of sternness and fierce pride.

There’s also Armitage Hux, Head of Slytherin House and Potions Master. Severe and pale faced, and wearing his usual peevish expression, he looks like a grim undertaker in his black high-collared coat.

And, finally, draped in his usual long flowing robes in neutral tones and radiating a quiet, immense sense of power is Hogwarts Headmaster, Obi Wan Kenobi.

They all stand there, waiting for her to speak. But Rey’s eyes continue scanning the Hospital Wing until they find what – or, more specifically, _who_ – they had unknowingly been searching for.

She spots Kylo from a distance, seated on a cot across the aisle from her. He looks mostly unscathed, save for a few minor cuts and bruises on his face. His left arm is in a sling, the burned skin wrapped up in bandages and slathered with thick orange ointment.

When he sees her sitting up, awake, he seems to exhale. He looks… relieved. But the moment is over in an instant, his neutral mask sliding back into place again.

Rey’s gaze shifts back to Obi Wan, who is looking down at her with those piercing blue eyes that sometimes make her feel as if she is being x-rayed. “Please tell us what happened,” he requests patiently. “Whenever you feel ready, Miss Niima.”

Having all eyes on her makes Rey fidget uncomfortably. She picks nervously at a loose thread on the edge of her blanket.

“Sir… We were in the Forbidden Forest. Seventh Year Challenge.” It sounds so stupid now, considering all that had happened as a result of their recklessness. “We came across a Chimaera. It attacked us. We fought it.”

The ensuing silence is deafening.

“A _Chimaera_ , Headmaster?” asks Madame Kalonia. “What was it even doing near a school? Or in _Britain_ , for that matter? I thought they reside in the Far East?”

“We have been tracking the Chimaera’s movements for a while now,” explains Obi Wan mildly. “It was undoubtedly drawn by energy, as the Forest is a powerful magical source point.”

Madame Kalonia nods, understanding. But her expression is grave.

“There was never any danger,” Obi Wan says, squeezing her shoulder gently. “I personally cast the containment hex … The creature would never have been able to cross the boundary onto the castle grounds.”

“More importantly,” presses Mothma, in that ironclad tone of voice of which only she was capable. “How did two seventeen-year old wizards defeat a Class XXXXX beast without any backup? It is nothing short of miraculous you both weren’t killed.”

Rey looks up at Kylo, and his eyes snap unerringly to hers again the way they had in the Forest. For the first time, she sees genuine fear in them.

It was impossible to tell the truth of what had happened without describing the spell Kylo had used. That sort of magic was taboo at Hogwarts, strictly forbidden. But, without it - without _him_ \- Rey knew with absolute certainty she would not have lived to tell about it.

“It was our wands…” she begins slowly. “We both issued a curse at exactly the same moment and they… _joined_. The combined magic was powerful enough to knock the Chimaera backwards. We got away.”

It wasn’t an outright lie; but it wasn’t the whole truth, either.

“Interesting,” Obi Wan muses. His fingers are steepled beneath his chin, his expression thoughtful. “I shall write to Qui-Gon Jinn tomorrow to share this new development. He asked me to keep him abreast of any _unique_ interactions that might occur. Owing, of course, to the nature of your wands’ twin cores.”

Rey recalls the sheer magnitude of force their joined wands had emitted … _Unique_ , indeed.

“Was anyone else involved?” Hux asks sharply. His tone is somber, but Rey detects a flicker of sadistic pleasure in his pale eyes, perversely delighted by an opportunity for discipline.

Now it was Rey’s turn to be alarmed. She had already been caught; she would accept whatever punishment was dealt. But she would go down protecting Finn and Rose, whatever the consequences.

The problem was, she wasn’t the only one sharing in this secret.

“No, sir,” Rey says quietly, looking down into her lap.

Hux turns to Kylo, waiting in turn for his answer. Rey peeks up at him, silently pleading with her eyes.

He gives a quick jerk of his head as if to say, _No_. Hux visibly deflates, looking as if Christmas had been cancelled.

“Very well,” says Obi Wan. “I am immensely relieved that you are both safe. But I must impress upon you the seriousness of what you have done. Fifty points will be deducted from each of your Houses, and you will both serve detention two weeks from this evening.”

Rey suppresses a groan. Saturday detentions were the absolute _worst_. At the same time, this was not the worst of her record to date as far as detentions were concerned – not by a longshot. At least she had made it several weeks into the school term without incident… which was more than she could say for her previous six years at Hogwarts.

Hux stiffens, as if remembering something important. He then rounds on Kylo, looking furious. “Chimaera venom is extremely valuable, Ren. Did it not occur to you to collect some?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Kylo mumbles. “I was… preoccupied.”

“And a good thing, too,” snaps Madame Kalonia. She glares at Hux, who, despite his own acerbic nature shrinks back at the hawkishness of her expression. “A Chimaera’s venom is extremely toxic. Miss Niima very well could have died if he had delayed even a few moments longer.”

“How… _did_ we get back?” Rey asks timidly, still struggling to piece the events of the last few hours together.

“Mr. Ren carried you, seeing as Apparition is impossible from within the grounds,” Madame Kalonia states matter-of-factly, fluffing her pillows. “Scared the living daylights out of a group of third years returning from Hogsmeade, I might add.”

Rey pictures herself, helpless and unconscious, being carried like a limp ragdoll up the steps to the castle. By _Kylo Ren_ , no less. Her cheeks heat with embarrassment. It was humiliating.

Kylo, across from her, looks thoroughly embarrassed also. A steady blush creeps its way up from his cheeks under his hairline.

Madame Kalonia resumes bustling around the Hospital Wing, brisk and businesslike. “Mr. Ren, you may go. Come see me once a day to change your bandages until that burn is fully healed. Miss Niima, you will remain in hospital for the remainder of the week.”

“The _week_?” Rey protests, trying vainly to sit up again and then wincing in discomfort. “Madame Kalonia, the first Quidditch match of the season is next weekend. We have our first practice on Tuesday…”

“You will remain until I am satisfied that the venom is completely out of your system,” Madame Kalonia tells her flatly. “ _And_ until both wounds on your leg and back have fully healed. No exceptions.” Her firm tone books no argument.

Rey flops back against the pillows, blowing a loose tendril of hair out of her face with a disgruntled huff. Why was it no one at this accursed school ever seemed to understand the importance of Quidditch?

Rey thinks she sees Kylo’s mouth twitch at the corners; perhaps in sympathy, or in amusement. But in the next instant he is hopping down smoothly from his own hospital cot, silently following Hux back to his dormitory without giving her a second glance.

🎇🎇🎇

Rey receives a steady stream of visitors while in hospital.

Rose and Finn come to see her as soon as Madame Kalonia will allow it. Rose immediately throws her arms around Rey in a tight embrace and bursts into tears while Finn hangs back, looking solemn and ashen faced. Rey reaches out to squeeze his arm reassuringly. He manages to give her a small smile in return, even if it lacks his usual bravado.

Jannah, one of Rey’s roommates and Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, stops by daily under the guise of giving Rey detailed notes from all her classes. When Jannah taps the notes with her wand, however, they are revealed as a covert means of sharing detailed rundowns from her playbook for their upcoming match against Slytherin.

A huge box of all her favorite sweets arrives from Honeydukes, courtesy of Chewbacca. Rey resigns herself to convalescence, munching happily on Chocolate Frogs and Sugar Quills and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans while she intermittently rests and catches up on homework.

Her days are bright, but her nights are restless.

Rey has a recurring dream. A nightmare, really; one she’s had since she was little. In the dream she is alone, in total darkness. She is distraught, crying out, begging someone, _Please._ _Don’t leave. Come back._

The dream morphs, changes shape. In the darkness she is now weightless, floating. But she is not alone. Strong arms surround her, holding her close. This time, a familiar voice that is not her own says, _I’ve got you, Rey. Stay with me._

Every time, before she can see who the voice belongs to, Rey wakes. She lays alone, panting and shivering, rendered hollow from the ache of inexplicable yearning.

🎇🎇🎇

Rey is released from the Hospital Wing early Friday morning.

She races up to Gryffindor Tower so she can shower, brush her teeth and put on her uniform. She quickly throws her hair up into its customary three buns before clattering down the staircase so she can have breakfast with Finn and Rose in the Great Hall.

The sweet and savory scents comingling in the air make Rey’s mouth water and her stomach rumble. The Hospital Wing’s limited menu of broth, plain toast, and unidentified gelatinous substances had been nowhere near sufficient, and she was looking forward to a proper breakfast.

“Feeling better, I see,” says Finn, eyeing the mountain of scrambled eggs, sausage and syrup drenched pancakes with a grin.

Rey wrinkles her nose at him. She steals a piece of bacon off his plate, shoving it into her mouth in one bite and washing it down with a swig of pumpkin juice.

Unfortunately, their very first class of the day is Potions, and the three of them trudge reluctantly down to the dungeon after breakfast.

Their class is a mixture of students from all different Houses; only those who received a high enough score on their Potions OWL to meet Hux’s exacting standards.

Kylo is among them. It’s the first time Rey has seen him since that first night in the Hospital Wing. He sits toward the front with his usual blasé expression, staring straight ahead.

Rey feels a slight twinge of disappointment, and she’s not sure what bothers her more; the fact that he refused to look at her, or the fact that she had noticed.

Rey takes her seat next to Finn and Rose at their usual table, noting the gold cauldron full of opalescent liquid already simmering at Hux’s desk. The excited whisperings of her classmates begin to die down when Hux starts his lecture.

“Amortentia,” he begins, pacing around the dungeon with his hands clasped behind his back. “Who can tell me what this potion is used for?”

Pammich Nerro Goode, a seventh year Ravenclaw girl, raises her hand to answer. “It’s a love potion, sir. One of the most powerful potions in the world.” Her voice contains a hushed reverence.

“Correct, Miss Goode,” says Hux approvingly. “Ten points to Ravenclaw. And who can list for me the essential ingredients?”

A few more hands go up. There are many students in the class – most of them, female – who are now sitting straight up in their chairs, facing forward with rapt attention.

Tallissan Lintra, a fellow Gryffindor and another of Rey’s roommates – who, in six years, Rey had never seen do anything in class other than pass notes and curl tendrils of her hair lazily around her wand - is scribbling furiously, nose nearly touching parchment.

“I am showing you this,” Hux continues, “not so you will learn how to _make_ it,” he glares shrewdly at Tallie, who shrinks further down into her seat, “but so you will be able to recognize the signs and avoid falling under this very powerful potion’s influence.”

Rey resists the urge to roll her eyes. “As if anyone would want to slip _him_ a love potion,” she mutters quietly under her breath. “Grumpy tosser.” Rose, sitting next to her, clamps her lips shut and shakes with silent laughter.

“Miss Niima,” Hux’s voice rings clearly throughout the dungeon.

 _Shit_.

“So nice of you to re-join us from your extended _vacation_ ,” he finishes nastily. “Perhaps you could share with the class how a witch or wizard would go about detecting and identifying this particular potion?”

Rey grits her teeth. Hux was trying to trip her up; embarrass her, like always.

Unfortunately for him, she’d had nothing to do and nowhere to go for the past week, and subsequently had done all of her reading. She’d even skipped ahead by a few chapters.

“Of course, _sir_ ,” Rey over-emphasizes the last word with thinly veiled sarcasm. “Amortentia is notoriously difficult to detect because it smells different to each individual person; like what most attracts them.”

Hux grimaces, clearly displeased; but he can find no fault with her answer. He says nothing, turning back to his desk.

Zero points to Gryffindor, Rey notes. He _really_ was a complete and absolute tosser.

Hux calls each table up one by one to examine the contents of the cauldron. Rey files behind Rose, who dazedly mumbles something about freshly mowed grass and spearmint toothpaste, before she makes it close enough to get a whiff of the concoction.

It hits her like the double decker Knight Bus.

Dirt. Oakmoss. That smell after a rainstorm. And something deep, masculine… What was that? _Sandalwood_?

Rey blinks, attempting to clear her head. But all she sees are flashes of dark orbs reflecting burning embers, the image seemingly branded onto the backs of her eyelids.

She wobbles back to her seat on unsteady legs. She’s so out of sorts that she knocks Finn’s ink well onto the floor where it shatters, splattering dark liquid everywhere. She mutters a quick apology, kneeling down to cast _Reparo_ and _Scourgefy_ charms.

From her vantage point on the floor, Rey has a clear view to where Kylo sits across the dungeon. He’s still staring straight ahead, but the hand resting on his thigh beneath the table clenches tightly into a fist.

Class ends within the hour. Kylo packs his books, quills and parchment scrolls into his bag slowly, methodically. He hovers silently near his desk as their classmates file steadily out of the dungeon.

Rey turns to Finn and Rose, who are waiting for her by the doorway. “You two go on; I’ll catch up.”

Finn looks _extremely_ reluctant to do so, glaring daggers at Kylo. But he eventually allows himself to be tugged along by Rose, following her up the winding staircase.

At last, they are alone.

Rey has had a week to think about what she would say to Kylo when she saw him again. But now, in the moment, nothing seems adequate.

“Hi.” She fidgets with the fraying strap on her dilapidated old school bag.

“Hello.” There is not a trace of his usual haughty arrogance to be found. Kylo looks more nervous than Rey has ever seen him, shoving his hands into his pockets and staring fixedly at the floor.

He seems unsure of what to say next, and Rey thinks he might start talking about the weather or something equally as ridiculous. Finally, he blurts, “You didn’t tell the Headmaster I used dark magic.”

Rey blinks. Waits for him to elaborate. He doesn’t. She raises her eyebrows in a look that says: _Yes, and?_

Kylo huffs, running a frustrated hand through his artfully tousled hair. “You could have gotten me expelled,” he says, more pointedly. “Why didn’t you?”

The truth is, Rey doesn’t know why. She’d spent the entire week in the Hospital Wing thinking about it, and she still hadn’t come up with an answer. So, she deflects, turning the question back around on him. “You could have left me to die in the Forest. Why didn’t _you_?”

He apparently doesn’t have an answer for that, either. They stand in an awkward silence, a state of détente.

Until, finally, Rey can’t take it any longer. “Are we going to talk about what happened?”

He begins wandering aimlessly around the dungeon classroom, seemingly interested in looking anywhere but at her. “You mean the part where I saved your life?”

The challenge in his voice infuriates her. He knew _damn well_ what she meant.

“ _I mean_ ,” she hisses, looking around as if someone might hear, “that spell you used. Where did you even _learn_ something like that? It was…”

“… effective,” Kylo finishes the sentence for her, that combative edge to his tone intensifying.

“It was _vile,”_ Rey snaps. “I’ve never seen anything so horrific.”

Kylo flinches slightly at that, but when he speaks again his voice is low and calm as ever. “What does it matter, as long as we both made it out alive?”

Rey throws her hands up in exasperation. Her mouth gapes open at him in silent outrage. “It _matters_ ,” she sputters, “because –”

In three long strides he is standing directly in front of her, invading her space. Rey roots herself to the spot, refusing to back down based purely on principle. But she does have to crane her neck at an uncomfortable angle to glare up at him properly.

Kylo had been abnormally tall throughout their adolescence, but always in a lanky, gawkish sort of way. At some point, he had filled out to become equal in breadth as he was in height. The sheer size of him eclipses everything around them, his broad shoulders blocking out the torch light.

“Because, _what_?” he demands angrily. “Because it doesn’t fit everyone’s limited definition of what’s _good_ or _virtuous_?”

Until this moment, Rey had never seen Kylo’s eyes up close. Even in the low light of the dungeon, she can now see they aren’t pitch dark like his hair, but a rich translucent brown. Every other part of him is harsh and cold, unyielding like stone; but his eyes fill her with unsettling warmth.

Kylo apparently takes her silence for non-verbal dissent, because he scoffs, shaking his head. “Typical Gryffindor. I save your life, and you’re so goddamn _self-righteous_ you think I should be the one to apologize.”

Rey honestly can’t think of anything to say in response. She can’t think anything _at all_ , really, with the way his physical presence engulfs her. The lingering sandalwood scent is overwhelming now that he’s standing so close.

His eyes roam over her face, once again appraising her like some fascinating, frustrating puzzle. “You’re giving me that look,” he says quietly. “From the Forest. When you called me a monster.”

 _Had she?_ Rey honestly couldn’t remember saying it. She digs in, anyway. “Only a monster would use that sort of magic.”

His face is as cool and remote as a dark sea, utterly unrepentant. “Magic is a tool, Rey. A tool to be used. All that matters is making sure you control _it_ rather than letting _it_ control you.”

 _Rey_. He had never called her anything except for “Niima,” and she hates the way her insides flutter at the sound of it in his deep, graveled tone. Had his voice _always_ sounded like that, and had she just failed to notice?

Rey forces herself to focus on the words themselves and not the _way_ he says them. When she speaks, her voice comes out more icily than she intends it to. “Did you learn that from your friends in the First Order?”

If possible, Kylo goes a shade paler. Something flickers in his eyes, gone in an instant. He sets his jaw in a stubborn line. “No.”

“But you do agree? With what they believe?” Rey is baiting him, and she knows it. But she needs him to explain. She needs to understand, so she can reconcile everything she thought she knew about him with everything that had happened in the last week.

His eyes roam over her face again. He seems to be wrestling with something internally. Finally, he says, hesitantly, “You asked me why I didn’t leave you in the Forest… The truth is, I’ve never wanted to be your enemy.”

His tone is shockingly honest and sincere. Rey considers his words, at a loss for how to react. _Enemy_ is the only way she’s ever thought of him.

“I'm not sure if you and I could be friends,” she says carefully.

Kylo’s face twists into an all-too-familiar sneer. “I don’t want to be your _friend_.” He spits the word with such disdain that it hits Rey like a physical slap.

Rey knows it’s not surprising; knows on some level that she probably even deserves it. But she can’t deny that it guts her seeing how repulsed he is by the idea of being associated with her.

 _This_ is the Kylo Ren she remembers. The warm eyed, soft spoken stranger had been an illusion; wishful thinking on her part. And that, in itself, feels like its own staggering loss.

In response, Rey goes to that place where she goes any time the hurt feels too overwhelming, taking refuge in the only way she’s ever known how to survive.

She shuts down.

When she speaks again, her tone is detached, robotic. “Of course. Kylo Ren could never be friends with a filthy _Mudblood_.”

Kylo blinks. He looks confused, then horrified. “I didn’t mean - ”

“Forget it,” Rey cuts across him, shouldering her bag. “Clearly there’s nothing to be gained from this conversation. I’ll see you on the Quidditch pitch.”

And with that, she turns to walk away, leaving him alone in the dungeon. She refuses to look back, even though she feels the shadow of his gaze haunting her like a specter long after she’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Star Wars References:**   
>  [Harter Kalonia](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Harter_Kalonia)   
>  [Mon Mothma](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mon_Mothma)   
>  [Armitage Hux](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Armitage_Hux)   
>  [Qui-Gon Jinn](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Qui-Gon_Jinn)   
>  [Jannah](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jannah)   
>  [Tallissan Lintra](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tallissan_Lintra)   
>  [Pammich Nerro Goode](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Pammich_Nerro_Goode)
> 
> **Harry Potter References:**   
>  [Hospital Wing](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Reviving_Spell%E2%80%9D>Enervate</a>%0A<a%20href=)   
>  [Class XXXXX Beast](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Ministry_of_Magic_Classification)   
>  [Hogsmeade](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Hogsmeade)   
>  [Honeydukes](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Honeydukes)   
>  [Chocolate Frogs](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Chocolate_Frog)   
>  [Sugar Quills](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Sugar_Quill)   
>  [Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Bertie_Bott%27s_Every_Flavour_Beans)   
>  [Gryffindor Tower](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Gryffindor_Tower)   
>  [Hogwarts Uniform](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Hogwarts_uniform)   
>  [Potions Dungeon](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Potions_Classroom)   
>  [Amortentia](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Amortentia)   
>  [Knight Bus](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Knight_Bus)   
>  [Reparo](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Mending_Charm)   
>  [Scourgify](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Scouring_Charm)   
>  [Mudblood](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Mudblood)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovelies! Happy Saturday!
> 
> This is a long chapter and it is action packed (in the best way). All aboard the Hogwarts ANGST Express!!! 🚂
> 
> I hope you enjoy. Thanks so much for reading! 🦁 ❤ 🐍

The first Quidditch match of the season takes place the following Saturday, on a grey and stormy afternoon.

The seats in the stadium are filled to capacity. Gryffindor vs. Slytherin matches always seem to galvanize the Hogwarts Houses in their mutual hatred against Slytherin, and plenty of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students can be seen sporting Gryffindor’s gold and burgundy colors.

Finn and Rose are huddled together under an umbrella in the front row, waving their banners and cheering louder than anyone.

The two teams face each other on the Quidditch pitch with Coach Dameron at their center. “I want a nice clean game,” he says sternly, eyes flitting back and forth between the two Captains - Jannah for Gryffindor, and Krennic from Slytherin.

They step forward and reluctantly shake hands. It’s clear from the way his forearm strains that Krennic is trying to crush her fingers. Jannah, to her credit, doesn’t even flinch.

Both teams glower at each other from their respective huddles. Kylo stands behind the rest of the Slytherins, towering over everyone as per usual.

Rey is still seething from their argument in the potions dungeon, the image of his sneering face burned permanently into her memory.

Kylo’s gaze locks onto hers, and this time she refuses to look away. She narrows her eyes at him menacingly. _I’m coming for you_ , they say.

To Rey’s satisfaction she sees a flicker of trepidation, the Adam’s apple in his throat bobbing as he swallows nervously.

 _Good_.

The two teams mount their brooms. Coach Dameron blows his whistle, and the match begins.

It’s clear from the onset that Slytherin is out for blood. Within the first fifteen minutes Coach Dameron awards a foul to Gryffindor’s Kaydel Ko Connix when Zekk aims a Bludger directly at her head. She makes the penalty shot with ease.

Jessika Pava makes several incredible saves as Gryffindor Keeper, at one point dangling upside down while playfully wiggling her eyebrows and sticking her tongue out. Phasma, Slytherin’s imposing female Beater, growls at the thwarted attempt to score, looking angry enough to split her own broomstick in half.

An hour into the match they are tied with Slytherin at 350 points. Gryffindor continues to hold their own, despite the deplorable weather. The wind howls, thunder rumbles and lighting crackles across the sky as heavy rain pummels them, making visibility damn near impossible.

At long last, Rey spots a metallic flash in the distance near the Slytherin goal post. She sets off towards it at top speed. A dark blur in the corner of her vision tells her that Kylo has also spotted it and is tearing off in the same direction.

Under normal conditions, Rey’s petite, slender build would have been ideal for a Seeker. But in the blustery gale, Kylo’s size and weight are giving him a serious advantage. He pulls ahead of her… by inches… then by nearly a foot…

She needs to do something drastic and unexpected to regain the upper hand - and _quickly_.

Abandoning their neck-in-neck pursuit of the snitch, Rey pulls sharply upward. Up and up, away from the pitch and over the crowd, all the way to the top of North Tower.

She lands on the roof and immediately dismounts her broom, running at full speed. Years of scavenging through scrap heaps in the trailer park for Unkar had made Rey quick on her feet with an impeccable sense of balance, and she scales nimbly along the roof’s center beam like a tightrope.

The memory serves to further steel her resolve. She did not come this far to lose. Especially not to _him_.

Wind and rain pelt her from every direction, but Rey grits her teeth and surges onward, focusing on nothing but placing one foot in front of the other.

When she reaches the ledge, Rey doesn’t hesitate. She jumps into the air while seamlessly maneuvering herself back onto her broomstick, angling downward into a sharp nosedive. Kylo swears loudly as she whooshes past him out of nowhere, at exactly the right trajectory.

Rey hurtles toward the ground, the force of the velocity causing her broom handle to vibrate. Kylo is hot on her heels, the snitch just barely out of reach. Rey angles herself forward and stretches her arm out as far as it will go. Her fingers close around the tiny golden ball mere feet above the grass.

The crowd goes wild.

Rey dismounts and pumps her fist into the air, holding the snitch up in triumph. Her elated sense of victory is short lived, however.

Kylo is on the ground now as well, and he is heading straight towards her.

The expression on his face is coldly furious.

Rey _feels_ him coming more than she sees him, her body subconsciously tensing for the collision as an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object.

“Are you _insane_?” Kylo grabs her harshly, his enormous hands squeezing her upper arms in a vice grip.

“Let me go!” Rey thrashes to push him off, but his grip on her only tightens.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he demands, shaking her slightly. “That stunt you just pulled? You could have been seriously hurt. For fuck's sake, you could have _died_.”

“Don’t act like you care,” Rey snarls. She continues struggling against him with futility. She may as well have been fighting a brick wall. “You’re just upset because I _beat_ you!”

She hurls the words at him like a weapon. Kylo blinks. He looks at her, incredulous. “Is that really what you think I care about?”

There’s an earnestness in his tone that makes Rey stop struggling. His expression is open, sincere. And shockingly vulnerable.

For a moment, the rest of the world falls away. Rey hears nothing – not the cheers and boos from the crowd, not the rumbles of thunder, not the pounding rain – nothing but the sound of their own ragged breathing.

Kylo’s hair is drenched, plastered to his forehead. Droplets of rain water drip down over his dark brow, his prominent nose, his full lips.

His _lips_. When had they come so close?

Rey is numb, soaked to the bone and freezing. She feels only the bruising force of his fingers digging into her arms and the warm puffs of condensation from his breath against her face, which is mere inches from his now. 

And his eyes… _Merlin_ , they are arresting, burning into hers like pools of molten lava. His face inclines toward hers infinitesimally - and for the wildest, briefest moment, Rey thinks he’s going to kiss her.

A harsh whistle jolts both of them back to reality. Coach Dameron approaches them on his broomstick and dismounts.

Her Gryffindor teammates are suddenly there as well, Jannah appearing at Rey’s elbow. “Remove those hands from my player if you want to keep them attached,” she growls threateningly.

Kylo releases her at once. He runs a hand roughly over his wet face, as if clearing himself from a stupor. He then turns and stalks off toward the changing rooms, fists clenched at his sides, the rest of the Slytherin team following in his wake.

Rey distantly registers a series of _well dones_ and congratulatory pats to her back, snippets of conversation regarding a celebration in the Gryffindor common room. But she hardly even notices them, transfixed as she is on Kylo’s retreating back.

She roots her feet in the muddy earth, resisting the urge to go after him.

Rey shivers, but it has nothing to do with the cold.

🎇🎇🎇

Rey doesn’t speak to Kylo again for a week.

She still sees plenty of him, in class and the Great Hall… But they both seem resolutely intent on ignoring the other, which suits her just fine.

Rey, for her part, also resolutely vows not to dwell on what happened after the Quidditch match. Not the heated exchange, not the feeling of his strong hands gripping her, not the way his eyes had flickered down to her mouth just before he inched closer…

No, she was not thinking about it at all.

Instead, Rey buries herself in schoolwork. Which is easy enough to do, with their NEWT exams fast approaching.

She and Rose hunker down in the Library that next Saturday afternoon, books and parchment strewn across the woodworn table.

Rey chews at her lip. She’s unfocused, struggling with her Arithmancy homework more than she normally would. She’s been staring at the same problem for the last twenty minutes, lines beginning to blur together on the page.

Rey sighs, tossing her quill down onto the parchment. She rubs at her strained eyes and stretches her aching back, joints cracking and popping as she arches against the Library’s torturous excuse for a chair.

Rose takes a break as well, propping her chin onto curled fists in a way that puffs her round cheeks out like an adorable chipmunk.

“Three Broomsticks tonight?” she asks. It was their typical Saturday night ritual.

“Can’t,” Rey grumbles sourly. “I have to serve my detention.”

Rose frowns with sympathy. “That sucks. What are you doing for it?”

“We’re polishing suits of armor on the second floor.”

Rose raises her eyebrows. “… We?”

“Me, and… Kylo Ren.” Rey picks nervously at the corner of her parchment. She holds her breath, praying that Rose will drop the subject.

She doesn’t.

“He’s been acting weird lately, hasn’t he?” Rose muses, almost thoughtfully. “Ever since what happened in the Forest.”

Rose and Finn had never asked her for details, and Rey had never offered them. The Headmaster hadn’t strictly forbidden her from telling them, exactly, but it was difficult to find the words.

What could she tell them, when she hadn’t even managed to make sense of it herself?

“He… saved my life,” Rey tells her quietly. “That night.”

“ _What?_ Are you serious?!”

“ _Shhhhhh!_ ” Madame Jacosta, the stern and elderly librarian, glares at them over a pair of minute spectacles from behind the towering pile of books on her desk. They both sink further down into their chairs.

“I mean,” Rose hunches closer, speaking now in a low whisper. “I thought you hated him.”

“I do,” Rey says firmly. “I mean, he’s in Slytherin, so…”

_Except those incredible eyes. And those soft, pillowy, kissable lips. And those ridiculously huge hands you want touching you everywhere._

Rey swallows, exceedingly grateful her internal monologue is silent. Rose squints slightly, leveling her with a look of clear suspicion.

For a Hufflepuff, she could be remarkably shrewd when the situation warranted it.

Rey feels it building. The pressure of holding it all inside. Everything she hadn’t told her friends about that night in the Forest. Every confusing emotion she was feeling. She needed to talk about it, or she was going to explode.

She takes a deep, steadying breath. “Rose…”

They both jump in their seats as Finn appears unexpectedly out of nowhere and plops down into the empty chair between them. He takes a huge bite out of a half eaten Cauldron Cake. “What are you two talking about?”

 _“Shhhhhhhhhh_!” Madame Jacosta hisses again, more loudly, this time leveling a death glare at Finn. Rose mimics her expression, although for an entirely different reason.

“What?” he asks indignantly, mouth chock full.

“Nothing,” Rey mumbles, burying her nose in her book again.

🎇🎇🎇

At 7 o’clock in the evening they report to the second floor for their detention. Argus Panox, Hogwarts’ cantankerous Caretaker, stuffs their arms full of filthy old rags and Madame Glossy's silver polish, gleefully explaining that the suits of armor have been charmed to revert back to their original tarnished state if they miss even a single spot.

Three hours in, Rey is damp with sweat from sheer exertion. Her arm burns in protest. Kylo works silently several suits down the hall from her. Aside from having rolled up his sleeves, he looks perfect and unruffled as ever. He still refuses to interact or acknowledge her presence, and she envisions that every stubborn spot she scrubs is his stupid handsome face.

At last, around 11, they finish. Rey wearily drags herself in the direction of the supply closet, but stops in her tracks when she spots a soft blue glow emanating from a room at the end of the corridor.

In the room, she finds… _mirrors_. Dozens of them, in varying shapes and sizes. All illuminated by the ethereal glow of moonlight through the window. Directly ahead, at the room’s center, is a particularly large, ornate, gilded one, with detailed carvings. The inscription across the top reads, _Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi_.

Rey’s brow furrows. It wasn’t ancient runes, or any other language she recognized.

The inscription is quickly forgotten, however, as Rey shifts her gaze toward the mirror’s reflective surface. What she sees makes her jaw fall open. She drops the pile of rags and buckets, everything clattering to the floor with an ear splitting crash.

In the mirror, Rey sees her own face. But not her reflection, exactly. It’s more like watching something on film, completely separate and outside of herself.

Rey watches as the face in the mirror – _her_ face – tips backward. Her eyes flutter shut, and a soft contented smile spreads across her features.

Mist floating around the periphery of the image clears, and she’s no longer alone in this vision. Lean muscular arms wrap around her from behind, securing tightly around her waist. An unmistakable head of dark hair nuzzles itself into her shoulder, lips placing sensuous kisses up the column of her throat.

“What are you—”

Rey whips around in horror to see Kylo standing just inside the doorway. She has the ridiculous urge to throw herself in front of the mirror, arms spread wide to prevent him from looking, but it’s too late. He’s already staring directly at it, eyes wide with shock.

Was he seeing what _she_ was seeing?

 _Fuck_.

The dead silence stretches on for an unbearably long time. Rey is desperate for something, _anything_ , to get his attention away from the mirror, to change the subject…

“Why do you hate Muggles?” she blurts.

Kylo jumps, so transfixed by the mirror he’d forgotten she was standing there. He shoves his hands into his pockets – a tell, she’s beginning to realize, when he wants to feign nonchalance. But the stiffness in his posture gives him away.

“I never said I did. You might be surprised, about a lot of things, if you bothered to get to know me.”

“I know everything I need to know,” she tells him flatly.

The hollow space beneath his right eye twitches. “And what about you?”

“What _about_ me?”

“Your parents. They abandoned you, didn’t they? When you were five?”

Rey's expression hardens. “That’s none of your business,” she snaps, a warning in her tone.

Kylo continues as if she hadn’t spoken. “And your foster father, the drunk. He neglected you. Took you in so he could collect his check from the government and then left you dirty and starving.”

Rey’s blood runs cold. The fact that she was an orphan was relatively common knowledge at Hogwarts, having been subject to a fair amount of gossip. But Unkar? The trailer park? She hadn’t told anyone about that except Finn and Rose. There was no way he could have known. Unless…

She narrows her eyes at him. “ _Legilimency_ , Kylo? That’s despicable, even for you.”

He gazes back at her, brazenly unrepentant. To Rey’s fury, she feels invisible fingers nimbly exploring the edge of her consciousness, seeking a way in.

“Stay out of my head,” she says in a low, dangerous voice. Kylo’s eyes widen in shock as she mentally _shoves_ the magic back at him, forcibly expelling him from her thoughts. Kylo recoils from her as if he had been burned. He exhales a stuttering breath, visibly shaken.

 _You’re not the only one who’s snuck into the Restricted Section in the Library,_ Rey thinks, mutinously.

She could have stopped there. She _should_ have. But she was entirely fueled now by rage and pain and humiliation. All she wanted in that moment was retribution. 

Rey pushes again, harder this time. Her own invisible fingers rip Kylo’s defenses to shreds as her wordless _Legilimens_ delves fully into his mind.

_A book. A calligraphy set. A woman’s mahogany hair twisted in intricate braids. A bag by the door. A tall man with a striking resemblance muttering, “See you later, kid,” as he ruffles a small boy’s dark hair affectionately, only never to return._

Rey exits Kylo’s memories as if surfacing from a pool of water, gasping for breath. Whatever vindictive triumph she had initially felt at invading his mind was long gone now. He doesn’t look angry, or even resentful. He looks… resigned, almost defeated.

Because someone finally knew his secret.

“You’re a half-blood,” Rey says. Her tone is soft, almost wondering. “You hate Muggles because you hate your father.”

Kylo swallows thickly. “I don’t hate him. Or them. But I do think they can be a danger to us. They need to be controlled.”

Rey says nothing, even as he steps closer. “You know I’m right, Rey. They’ve hurt you, too.”

She crosses her arms defensively across her chest. “Unlike you, I don’t discriminate against an entire group of people based solely on my own experience.”

Kylo shakes his head. His expression is sad, almost pitying. “You don’t need to defend them. They left you. Threw you away like a piece of garbage. Like you were nothing.”

Rey’s eyes prick and burn as tears begin to fall silently down both cheeks. She can’t remember the last time she cried… not since she was a child. But her chest aches at hearing such painful truths spoken aloud.

Kylo is even closer now, their faces mere inches apart. The expression in his eyes is hard and blazing, like Everlasting Fire. “You were nothing to them,” he tells her fiercely. “But not to me.”

Rey feels Kylo’s presence on the edge of her consciousness once again. But it’s different somehow this time. Rather than attempting to push his way into her mind, instead he _opens_ his own. It catches her so off guard that she stumbles into it like an abyss.

And to her astonishment, Rey sees… _herself_.

_Herself, wearing the Sorting Hat. Herself, casting a Patronus for the very first time. Herself, zipping through the air on a broomstick. Herself, laughing with Finn and Rose._

She sees herself through his eyes. And it’s not just the _seeing_ that astonishes her; each memory has corresponding thoughts and emotions that she can _feel_ clearly as if they were her own, forcing her to reckon with the implausible yet undeniable and inescapable truth…

Kylo Ren thought she was _beautiful_.

The connection snaps shut, and Rey stares at him, wide eyed and panting. He stares back looking equally as flustered. But his expression is set, resolute. His gaze holds that same intensity as it had after the Quidditch match, when she’d thought he was going to kiss her.

Rey feels trapped, like a caged animal. Her lungs constrict, pressed by a heavy invisible weight. Panic burbles up her throat, and…

She hits him – _hard_ – across the face.

Rey freezes in horror, staring at her own hand in shock as if she can’t believe it belongs to her. Kylo’s cheek displays an angry red mark in the shape of her palm, and she tenses for his reaction.

Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn’t _this_.

Kylo looks positively smug, pleased at having goaded her. Most surprising of all, he also looks incredibly _aroused_ , dark pupils blown wide with lust.

“ _Again_ ,” he commands roughly, his voice pitched so low into a growl that it honestly _does_ something to her.

Rey _could_ hit him again, honestly, just to wipe that arrogant smirk off his face. But instead, she finds herself reaching up to yank on his emerald and silver tie so she can pull his face forward and smash their lips together.

It’s not a gentle kiss. All teeth and tongues and rough caresses.

His lips are warm and incredibly soft, just as she imagined, and Rey angles her chin to give him better access. Kylo deepens the kiss, hands coming to rest on either side of her face. His thumbs stroke against her cheekbones, mimicking the way his velvet tongue strokes sinfully inside her mouth.

Some wild and deeply buried thing inside of her comes alive at his touch, howling and clawing desperately at the walls. Rey feels rabid, starving, like she could literally tear him apart. She gives in to the urge, biting down savagely into that plush lower lip. 

Kylo groans with pleasure, surging them both forward until her back meets the wall. Her arms instinctively loop around his neck as his own move to lock around her waist in an iron grip.

Pressed up against him, Rey becomes acutely aware of Kylo’s body, the lean muscles of his torso rock solid as the stones beneath her back. He is vitally alive, radiating heat, heartbeat synchronous with the one beating frantically in her own chest.

He tears his mouth away from hers and latches onto her neck, teeth grazing against the delicate skin in a way that makes her gasp.

“Tell you me want this,” he rasps feverishly against her throat.

“No.” It’s a stubborn, kneejerk response. Even to her own ears, it’s not convincing. Her voice doesn’t even sound like her own, all high pitched and breathy.

He bites down gently on her collarbone. Her back arches, helplessly responsive as his massive hands reach up to roughly palm her breasts through the thin fabric of her shirt.

Kylo wedges one of his knees up and forward and Rey makes a low, guttural, undignified noise as it grinds exquisitely against the aching, throbbing place between her thighs. She becomes aware of something long, hard and thick pressing insistently into her abdomen, and that’s when the alarm bells start going off in her mind.

She hasn’t been with anyone like this. She hasn’t been with anyone, _ever_.

Rey was intimately familiar with her own body and its needs, and had learned to manage them on her own with pleasurable efficiency. But _this_ … this painfully intense physical desire for another person… this wild, out of control, incomprehensible lust…

It was completely terrifying. And the fact that the first time it happens to her should be with _him_ of all people is entirely too much to process.

“Stop,” she whispers. “We have to stop.”

Kylo freezes instantly, his body going rigid. But he doesn’t relinquish his hold on her. His breath pants harshly against her neck. “Why?”

She doesn’t answer right away, because his thumb is still stroking across her ribcage in a way that makes it impossible to form rational thoughts or sentences.

He draws back to look at her. His face is a glorious disaster, all flushed cheeks and messy hair and swollen lips. It makes her want to kiss him again so badly that she has to close her eyes and take several calming breaths.

“Because,” she says weakly. “I can’t. _We_ can’t.”

He does release her then, and her traitorous body immediately misses his warmth.

Kylo shakes his head, jaw clenched in frustration. “Why can’t you just admit what you want? Do you think there’s some twisted virtue in denying yourself?”

“You don’t know what I want.” Rey wraps her arms protectively around herself, a useless shield against the sudden onslaught of emotions.

Kylo reaches a hand out toward her, but immediately retracts it when he sees her flinch. His eyes are beseeching. “What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid.”

“You are,” he says quietly. “You’re afraid of this. You’re afraid of _yourself_.”

Rey squeezes her eyes shut, utterly defenseless. Against his penetrating stare, against the truth of his words. She hears receding footsteps. When she opens her eyes again, Kylo is gone.

She stands alone in the Room of Mirrors, but it does nothing to refute his accusations. Versions of her own image reflect from myriad different angles, all of them leveling her with the same unanswered question.

_What do you want?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Star Wars References:**   
>  [Poe Dameron ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Poe_Dameron)   
>  [Orson Krennic ](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Orson_Callan_Krennic)   
>  [Kaydel Ko Connix](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kaydel_Ko_Connix)   
>  [Jessika Pava](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jessika_Pava)   
>  [Phasma](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Phasma)   
>  [Jacosta Nu](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jocasta_Nu)   
>  [Argus Panox](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Argus_Panox)
> 
> **Harry Potter References:**   
>  [Bludger](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Bludger#:~:text=A%20Bludger%20is%20a%20black,players%20off%20of%20their%20broomsticks.)   
>  [Keeper](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Keeper)   
>  [Golden Snitch](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Golden_Snitch)   
>  [Hogwarts North Tower](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/North_Tower)   
>  [Gryffindor Common Room](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Gryffindor_Common_Room#:~:text=The%20common%20room%20is%20a,ads%2C%20lost%20posters%2C%20etc.&text=The%20common%20room%20is%20decorated,is%20associated%20with%20the%20house.)   
>  [Hogwarts Library](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Hogwarts_Library)   
>  [Arithmancy](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Arithmancy)   
>  [The Three Broomsticks](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Three_Broomsticks_Inn)   
>  [Cauldron Cake](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Cauldron_Cake)   
>  [Hogwarts Suits of Armor](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Suit_of_armour)   
>  [Mirror of Erised](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Mirror_of_Erised)   
>  [Legilimency](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Legilimency)   
>  [Restricted Section](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Restricted_Section)   
>  [Half-Blood](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Half-blood)   
>  [Everlasting Fire](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Gubraithian_Fire)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnddddd we’re BACK with our two horny idiots!
> 
> Thank you, everyone, for your patience waiting for this update. I struggled a lot with this chapter, and then work happened to get very busy for me right around the same time. If only we could pay the bills writing fan fic, eh? The dream. Sigh…
> 
> Anywho, based on this chapter I’ve added tags for “Force Bond” and “Mutual Masturbation”.
> 
> *runs away* … OK BYE!
> 
> I hope you enjoy. Thanks so much for reading! 🦁 ❤ 🐍

The following week is terrible.

It’s already off to a bad start first thing Monday morning down in the dungeon with Hux. Normally a dab hand at Potions, Rey uncharacteristically makes careless mistake after careless mistake in brewing her Draught of Peace. She forgets to add the syrup of hellebore, and then forgets to add a counterclockwise stir after every third clockwise. The result is a black and charred-looking substance, not even close to the vivid turquoise hue it’s meant to resemble.

When Hux peers at the smoking disaster simmering in Rey’s cauldron, he sneers delightedly. Clearing the contents with a careless flick of his wand, he reviews the instructions and takes the opportunity to remind her that basic reading comprehension is the bare minimum expectation for a NEWT level course. With nothing to submit, Rey receives a zero for the day. She stares at the floor in humiliation while her classmates bottle up samples of their work.

Tuesday Transfiguration is equally as disastrous. Despite numerous attempts to turn a tortoise into a teapot, Rey is left with a vaguely teapot-shaped creature covered in scales with a spout for a nose, a shell for a lid and several clawed reptilian feet, which it uses to shuffle off her desk onto the floor. Finn laughs delightedly as it scurries around the classroom creating mayhem, but quickly assumes an expression more appropriate to the sickbed of a close friend when he sees the distraught look on her face.

In Herbology on Wednesday, Rey prods at her Mimbulus Mimbletonia with a little too much force, causing it to squirt stink sap all over her hair, her face, her clothing and her copy of _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_. The mess is remedied easily enough with a quickly muttered _Scourgify_ charm, but the scent of rancid manure still seems to follow her throughout the entire day, only further souring her mood.

She looks forward to Defense Against the Dark Arts on Thursday, by far her strongest subject. But even there, Rey doesn’t perform up to her usual standard. She misaims a practiced Knockback Jinx so substantially that it hits Baze Malbus squarely in the face, resulting in a bloody nose and him having to be carried off to the Hospital Wing.

“He’ll be fine. Everyone has off days,” her DADA Professor, Jyn Erso, tells her reassuringly. But Rey still can’t help feeling devastated.

The final straw comes at the end of the week in Divination. Rey already has limited patience for the subject, only having registered in a last minute attempt to fill her schedule and to pacify a fair amount of needling from Rose. Although their teacher, Professor Kanata, is known to have descended from a long line of talented seers, Rey has so far seen no evidence to support this phenomenon. On the contrary, she thinks Divination is a heaping pile of dragon dung.

On Friday afternoon they are holed up in the tower classroom – draped with silk scarves and reeking thickly of patchouli – attempting to read tea leaves. Rey squints into her mug, struggling to make sense of the shapeless dark blob lurking at the bottom. When Professor Kanata passes by their table she gasps, clutching dramatically at her chest. She stares at Rey, round eyes hugely magnified through her thick glasses. She points a shaking finger in the direction of her mug.

“My dear. You have… _The Grim_.”

Rey stares at her, deadpan. “The what?”

“ _The Grim!_ ” she repeats in a tremulous voice. “A most dreadful of dark omens.”

Rey resists the urge to roll her eyes. Professor Kanata frequently made doom-and-gloom pronouncements about various students and their impending ill fates, none of which ever came to fruition.

But, still. After the week she’s had, Rey’s not sure how much more bad news she can handle.

Rose leans over from her adjacent floor pouf. She eyes Rey’s cup and tilts her head thoughtfully. “I dunno, I think it kind of looks like a Hippogriff.”

Rey snorts quietly as Professor Kanata drifts away from their table, eyeing her with the grave solemnity reserved only for someone marked with certain death.

Rose nudges her shoulder. “Cheer up,” she whispers. “Remember in fourth year when that old bat said I was going to die of Spattergroit?”

“Yeah.” Rey gives her a small smile. “You’re right.”

At this point, she thinks she would welcome the blisters and pustules.

🎇🎇🎇

Rey is quiet through most of Friday dinner, shoveling down a plate of beef stew and mashed potatoes before telling Finn and Rose she would head back to the Gryffindor Common Room early.

Finn raises his eyebrow. “Before pudding? Are you feeling alright?”

“Just tired,” Rey tells him. “Lessons really kicked my arse this week. Want to get a head start on exam prep, you know.” She busies herself with gathering her sweater and her schoolbag, hoping they won’t catch her in the lie.

In truth, she _is_ tired, but more in an emotionally exhausted sort of way. She needs some peace and quiet. She needs some time to _think_.

Rey glances up to find Rose giving her _that look_ again. It was impressive, she thought – also inconvenient and _annoying_ \- the way Rose always managed to sense other peoples’ emotional state with such acute insight and clarity.

Thankfully, she says nothing in front of Finn. They all agree to meet at the usual time and place for their Hogsmeade trip on Saturday.

Rey ascends the staircase to the seventh floor and mutters “Flibbertigibbet” to the portrait of the Fat Lady, who nods and for once swings forward without a fuss. The Common Room is blessedly empty, and she plops down into her favorite squishy armchair near the fireplace.

Rey exhales a heavy sigh - more appropriate for someone aged one hundred seventy, not seventeen – and sinks down into the well-worn cushions.

She’d been off her game this week – _distracted_. And now was the absolute worst time for it. NEWT exams were only months away. Graduation was fast approaching. Scouts would be coming soon to scope out candidates for the Ministry’s elite Auror program.

Becoming a dark wizard catcher was the only career Rey had ever really been interested in. Jyn and Mothma both had expressed a great deal of confidence in her abilities -- but they had also stressed that she would need to work extra hard in her sixth and seventh years. The Ministry only took top of the class into the Aurora program... the best of the best.

Rey could easily attribute her intense competitive streak and her borderline obsessive work ethic to her Muggle upbringing. She worked twice as hard as everyone else at Hogwarts so that no one could ever call her abilities into question. No one could say she wasn’t good enough.

But deep down, Rey knew it was more than that. The truth was, she had nothing waiting for her in the Muggle world. No home to go back to.

If she couldn’t make it as a witch, by virtue of her own knowledge and skill, she would have nothing in the magical world either. No life, no future. And if she fizzled out right at the end of her seventh year… all of her focus, her determination, her ceaseless hard work, will have been wasted.

This, Rey thought, was bothering her more than anything. The fact that she had become so unfocused and violently off kilter for such a trivial, stupid reason.

A _boy_.

And not just any boy. A boy who she had loathed for as long as she could remember. A boy who now surprisingly took up permanent residence in every single vacant corner of her thoughts. 

The worst part of it was, Rey couldn’t even blame Kylo for what had happened. She had technically been the one to kiss him, hadn’t she?

Even sitting alone in the Common Room, she blushes at the admission. Merlin. She’d _kissed_ him. And he had kissed her _back_ , with an almost shocking level of enthusiasm.

But, _oh_. What a kiss it had been.

Rey had heard other girls talk about their first kisses, and the recollections were rarely generous. Descriptions of bad breath, too much tongue, awkward mishaps involving _teeth_ … were enough to make Rey feel comfortable with the fact that she was nearly an adult and had never truly kissed anyone.

Thanks to Kylo, Rey’s first kiss had been nothing short of earth shattering. She didn’t think she would ever get over the softness of his lips, that tongue doing positively sinful things inside her mouth…

Despite her severe lack of experience, there had been no awkwardness. Only pure, instinctual need. Rey blushed even deeper at the memory of how her body lit up like a live wire everywhere he touched her, the obscene little involuntary noises she’d made while grinding herself down against his thigh…

 _Tell me you want this…_ It was that low, gravelled tone of his voice that completely did her in. The small, rational part of her brain that was still functioning had responded, but her body instinctively knew the truth, every ragged breath and frenzied beat of her heart pulsing with a chorus of y _es, yes, yes…_

She _had_ wanted it, on a purely physical level. She wanted _him_. So very badly.

The way Kylo had been acting the entire week, you’d never even suspect that he had willfully turned her whole world upside down. He was remote as ever, back to barely giving her the time of day.

Rey was more upset by it than she had any right to be. Especially considering she had been the one to put a stop to it.

It was easy enough to justify, based on the million and one reasons why they were incompatible, why anything other than mutual disdain between them could never, ever work.

But it was also becoming increasingly more difficult for her to simply write him off, now that she’d been inside his head.

The true nature of his feelings toward her had been a shock, to say the least. Rey was now beginning to suspect that Kylo’s cold aloofness was a mask he presented to the world, a defense mechanism to hide his true self; what he truly thought, how deeply he actually felt things.

But that wasn’t even the most surprising bit. The thing that struck her most was his _loneliness_.

Abandoned by his father, neglected by his mother who had been more interested in advancing her career than spending time with him, raised mostly by nannies… Constantly surrounded by schoolmates who befriended him for his wealth and his family connections, but never feeling true companionship with anyone…

It was something Rey found so unexpectedly and overwhelmingly familiar, because it was a feeling she recognized… in herself.

Even with Finn and Rose, who she loved dearly, and who she knew loved her in return, unconditionally… There were some parts of herself she felt she could never share with them. They could never truly understand that black hole of darkness within her. The pain, the bitterness, the _anger_.

Kylo had grown up with everything, she had grown up with nothing. And yet, they were both similarly damaged. Equally guarded.

This was bothering her, too. Kylo’s accusation that she was _afraid_ had stung more than she was willing to admit, at least in part because it wasn’t entirely untrue.

What he had done – opening his mind to her like that – took courage. However messy and convoluted things were now, and however much she resented him for it, at least he had been brave enough to show her his true feelings.

She had been the one to run away. She had been a coward.

Rey stares at the fire crackling in the hearth, but it only serves to remind her of another night, not so long ago, when a boy who she had treated with nothing but blind hatred risked everything to save her life, without expectation or hope of anything in return.

Feeling suddenly like she could sleep for a thousand years, Rey gathers her things and drags herself wearily up the staircase to the girls’ dormitory.

🎇🎇🎇

Sleep does not come easily.

Rey spends several hours tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable. The problem is _not_ that she isn’t tired. The _problem_ is the maddeningly intense throbbing between her legs, a dull ache that refuses to subside no matter what position she lays in.

Rey flops onto her stomach and groans into her pillow. This was torture.

Ever since her musings by the fire earlier, Rey hasn’t been able to stop thinking about _him_. And all the _parts_ of him that are capable of reducing her to a shaking, quivering mess.

She flops onto her back again, staring up at the top of her four poster bed. She was going to have to take care of this. Get it over and done with. Because never sleeping again due to irrational horniness was definitely not an option.

At some point, Jannah, Tallie and Jess had returned to their room. She can hear their slow, measured breathing, one of them snoring softly. If sharing a communal space with three other girls throughout puberty had taught Rey anything… it was how to get herself off, quickly and quietly.

Rey rolls over onto her side to grab her wand off the bedside table. Tugging the curtains closed once again, she whispers _"Silencio"_ into the darkness.

Desperate for relief, she immediately gets down to business. Rey trails a hand down between her legs and swears when she realizes she’s completely soaked though both her underwear and her thin cotton pajama shorts. There’s an embarrassing little damp patch beneath her, saturating the sheets. She’s _never_ been this wet before.

The other hand drifts up to one of her breasts. Exposed to the cool air, her nipples are hardened into stiff little peaks beneath her tank top. Rey brushes across them, just that slight friction of fabric making her whimper in frustration. They had always been overly sensitive, but right now it was unbearable.

She was going to kill Kylo Ren for doing this to her. She was going to kill him and then have to cover up the murder and bury his body in the pumpkin patch…

Rey continues, becoming so lost in sensation that she barely registers a change in atmosphere. Like all the air had been sucked from the room, every sound disappearing into a vacuum.

Rey opens her eyes … and _shrieks_ bloody murder.

Kylo is there. Not in her room, exactly. But _there_ , like a physical presence, in her mind. She can see him clearly, as if he were right in front of her.

She can tell that he sees her, too, because he looks equally as terrified. His mouth is hanging open, eyes wide with shock and panic.

“What the _hell_ are you doing?!” Rey snatches her sheet and pulls it up, attempting to cover herself. “I told you to stay out of my head,” she snarls, angrily. “ _Get out_.”

“I’m not doing anything. I swear.” Kylo holds up his palms in a defensive gesture, as if he’s genuinely afraid she might suddenly appear in his room and attempt to strangle him.

It’s then that Rey takes in the full view of him. He’s reclining on his back, in bed like she is. And he’s wearing… next to nothing. Only a pair of black boxer briefs, which leave _very_ little to the imagination. Parts of him which Rey had only guessed at through his clothing, now visible to her on full display.

Smooth expanses of pale skin. A chiseled torso that would make even the most beautiful marble sculpture jealous. Prominent pectorals and sculpted abs, tapering down into a deep vee at his hips, a trail of dark hair disappearing below the waistband…

Rey swallows, her mouth suddenly very dry. “Do you have a _shirt_ or something you could put on?” she grits out.

Kylo seems to relax a little at that, his lips twitching upward into a smirk. He bends his arms back behind his head and stretches out lazily, which only serves to further emphasize his long, lean physique. He seems to be thoroughly enjoying her discomfort.

“Well, this is my dream, so…”

“I don’t think this is a dream,” Rey interrupts him, shakily. “I think it’s something… else.”

Kylo considers this. “No, I suppose you’re right.” Then he asks, craning his neck around, “Can you see my surroundings?” He pauses, adding, “I can’t see yours… Just you.”

The way he’s gazing at her makes Rey feel suddenly very self-conscious. She pulls the sheet up a little higher, clutching it nearly to her chin. “Why is this happening?” she whispers.

Kylo shrugs. “I’m not sure.” Then he adds, hesitantly, “Maybe… Maybe our minds are connecting because we were both thinking about each other.”

“I wasn’t… thinking… about you…” Rey mumbles, attempting to avert her eyes. But there is no escaping him. He is the only other person who exists in the world right now, the only thing she sees. He is everywhere, all at once.

Kylo shakes his head ruefully. “You can’t lie,” he tells her, simply. “Not here.”

Rey knows he is right about that. Wherever - whatever – _here_ is, she can sense him all around her. His thoughts, his emotions. It stands to reason that he can sense hers, too.

“Okay,” she admits. “Maybe I was. Thinking about you. You don’t have to make it weird or anything.”

Kylo's expression hardens. “Don’t worry,” he tells her, voice filled with acid. “I’m sure whatever _this_ is will be over soon. Then you can go back to acting like you hate me.”

It’s his usual condescending, sarcastic tone. But Rey can sense the real hurt behind it.

“I don’t hate you,” she says, quietly. For some reason, in this moment, it’s extremely important to her that he knows this.

Kylo blinks, surprised. His features soften infinitesimally. “Apparently you just hate kissing me,” he grumbles.

“I didn’t hate that either,” Rey whispers, so quiet she’s not even entirely sure that he heard her.

Except she _knows_ that he did, because he’s looking at her with an expression of wonder. As if truly seeing her for the first time.

“I was thinking about you too, you know,” he tells her, finally. “I have been, all week.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

The silence stretches on, but not uncomfortably so. It’s as if they’re both trying to figure out how to proceed with navigating this newfound honesty between them.

“What were you doing, before this?” he asks.

Rey blushes. There’s no way she was going to tell him about _that_. “Nothing,” she answers, a little too quickly. “I was sleeping. What were _you_ doing?”

“You already know what I was doing.” His voice has gone all low and gravelly in that way that makes her toes curl. Her gaze travels downward, and she becomes acutely aware of the hard outline of his erection, curving upward, straining against the fabric of his boxer briefs.

Her eyes snap back to his, and the blazing heat she finds there makes her breathless. The throbbing between her legs is so intense it’s almost painful now. The air is charged, pulsating with desire; whether his or hers, she can’t really be sure. All she knows is they feel like one in the same now.

They both speak at the exact same moment.

“Could we…”

“Maybe we could…”

“Only if you want to,” Kylo tells her, levelly. “But I need to hear you say it.”

It’s surprising how quickly and how naturally the answer comes to her. Like she’s tired of fighting him. Tired of resisting this _thing_ between them.

“I want to.”

She doesn’t need to say it twice. They both dive their hands beneath their respective waistbands, groaning in unison as Rey rubs the pads of her fingers in tight little circles against her clit and Kylo grips the base of his shaft.

Rey can’t even bother feeling self-conscious at the act of doing _this_ in front of another person. She is so fucking _wet_ and it feels so fucking _good_ and the sight of him touching himself is quite possibly the single most erotic thing she’s ever seen.

She watches as Kylo’s hand moves beneath the fabric of his boxer briefs, fisting along his length, the muscles in his stomach tensing, and she thinks that image alone will be enough mental source material to fuel her masturbatory fantasies for the rest of her life.

Rey moans as she slips two fingers inside herself, moving them in and out steadily. The penetration feels so ridiculously, unbelievably good and simultaneously not nearly enough. Kylo shudders at the sound, his fist beginning to pump more rapidly.

“Tell me what you were thinking about, earlier.”

“That night in detention,” Rey answers, breathlessly. “I can’t stop thinking about it. It felt so good. When you touched me. I never… I never knew it could feel like that…” She is babbling now, dazed and incoherent. “I want… I want…”

“Tell me,” Kylo says. His voice has taken on a ragged edge now that sounds broken, desperate. Like he’s _begging_. “What you want, what you need. Anything. I’ll give it to you.”

Rey is so far gone she doesn’t have the willpower to hold back from him anymore. She doesn’t _want_ to. Incapable of forming the words, instead she opens her mind to him through their connection, projecting viscerally detailed images of _exactly_ what she'd thought about.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Kylo groans, squeezing his shaft and pumping even faster now. “Rey, you have no idea. The things I want to do to you. Want you to fuck yourself on my hand while I suck on those perfect tits. Want to feel you shake and scream when you come all over my fingers.”

His words are filthy, and she _loves_ them. Rey adds a third finger, moaning at the stretch, imagining his larger ones. Her wrist aches at the furious tempo, but she doesn’t relent, feeling how close she is to the edge. When she feels that familiar tightness, like a taught bowstring ready to snap, she immediately knows she’s almost done for.

“That’s it,” he praises breathlessly. “Good girl. Keep fucking yourself for me. Want to watch you come.”

Merlin, that _mouth_ of his. Rey doesn’t think she will ever get enough of it. Hearing him call her a _good girl_ makes her want to do unspeakable things. Things which she currently can’t take the time or mental energy to fully analyze. But she probably should, at some point.

Rey feels her release starting to build in earnest now, low in her abdomen. Her entire body is covered in sweat, limbs shaking uncontrollably. The walls of her cunt begin to flutter and contract, the small tremor before a massive earthquake.

“You are so beautiful,” Kylo tells her. He sounds so raw, so open, so vulnerable. It makes something deep within her chest ache. “I wish I could touch you right now. I want to be there with you so badly.”

Rey doesn’t know how to tell him that she wishes he was there with her, too.

“Kylo…” It’s as if his name is the only thing grounding her, the only thing tethering her to the physical world as her orgasm threatens to shatter her into a thousand pieces.

Hearing her moan his name is what pushes him over the edge. He mutters an inelegant, _“Shit,”_ before curling in on himself, like a dark star imploding into a supernova.

Kylo’s release triggers her own. Through their mental bond, the intensity of his orgasm washes over her with the brute force of a hurricane making landfall. Rey’s back aches off the bed, her inner walls clenching forcefully around her fingers, mouth open in a silent scream.

The world whites out at the edges for several long, blissful moments.

Rey pulls shaking fingers out of her sopping, aching cunt, hand flopping weakly next to her on the bed. Her thighs are wet, coated with her own slickness. She stares blindly up at the top of her four poster, breathing heavily like she’d just run a marathon.

Kylo is breathing heavily as well, one hand still tucked into the front of his boxer briefs and the other holding back the sweat soaked hair from his forehead. There are thick, sticky white ropes of his spend painted across his abdomen.

If he looks this thoroughly and utterly _ruined_ , Rey can only imagine what she looks like.

His eyes lock onto hers in that way they always unerringly seem to, and they reflect the overwhelming emotions he surely can see in her own. In that moment she knows, just as she suspects he does, that everything has changed.

Before Rey can collect herself, before she can gather enough presence of mind to even begin to form coherent thoughts, let alone vocalize them, the connection between them snaps abruptly shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Star Wars References:**   
>  [Baze Malbus](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Baze_Malbus)   
>  [Jyn Erso](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jyn_Erso)   
>  [Maz Kanata](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Maz_Kanata)
> 
> **Harry Potter References:**   
>  [Draught of Peace](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Draught_of_Peace)   
>  [Transfiguration](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Transfiguration)   
>  [Herbology](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Herbology#:~:text=Herbology%20is%20the%20study%20of,the%20wizarding%20equivalent%20to%20botany.&text=Many%20plants%20provide%20ingredients%20for,for%20many%20years%20prior%201955.)   
>  [Mimbulus Mimbletonia](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Mimbulus_mimbletonia)   
>  [One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/One_Thousand_Magical_Herbs_and_Fungi)   
>  [Knockback Jinx](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Knockback_Jinx#:~:text=The%20Knockback%20Jinx%20\(Flipendo\)%20was,Book%20of%20Spells%2C%20Grade%202.)   
>  [Defense Against the Dark Arts](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Defence_Against_the_Dark_Arts)   
>  [Divination](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Divination_\(class\)#:~:text=Class%20information&text=Divination%20is%20an%20elective%20course,through%20various%20rituals%20and%20tools.)   
>  [Dragon Dung](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Dragon_dung)   
>  [Tessomancy](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Tessomancy)   
>  [The Grim](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Grim#:~:text=The%20Grim%20is%20an%20omen,black%2C%20menacing%2C%20spectral%20dog.)   
>  [Hippogriff](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Hippogriff)   
>  [Spattergroit](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Spattergroit)   
>  [The Fat Lady](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Fat_Lady)   
>  [Ministry of Magic](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Ministry_of_Magic)   
>  [Auror](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Auror)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: "I'm going to get on a more regular update schedule!"
> 
> Also me: *writes a nearly 6,000 word chapter*
> 
> Greetings, my loves! I am very pleased with how this chapter turned out. I sincerely hope you get as much happiness out of reading it as I did writing it.
> 
> There have been a few more tags added... for things... and stuff... 
> 
> I hope you enjoy. Thanks so much for reading! 🦁 ❤ 🐍

Rey wakes the next morning from what is quite possibly the most restful sleep of her entire life. She lays in bed for a long while, staring up at the top of her four poster, and part of her wonders if any of it had even been real… if it all had been a dream.

Somehow, with absolute certainty, she _knows_ that it wasn’t.

She can still sense him. Not as an active presence in her mind, but like a low hum of static in the background. Whatever this strange mental connection that’s opened up between them, it’s still there – waiting, lying dormant, ready to flare to life again.

The other thing that is still very much present is her apparently insatiable horniness. Their _activities_ last night had done nothing to help abate it – quite the contrary. Now, more than ever, Rey wants a do-over of that night they served their detention. She wants his hands and his mouth on her, for real.

She wants them all over her. Everywhere.

Rey eventually gets up and pads across the hall to the shared girls bathroom. She stands under the hot water with her honey and chamomile scented shower gel, rubbing the slippery soap across her naked body, lingering on areas where she’d imagined Kylo touching her last night.

Soon she’s panting beneath the spray, back arched against the cool tile of the shower wall, coming with three fingers buried deeply inside of herself.

Afterward she towels off and stands at the sink, twisting her hair up into buns while it’s still wet.

Rey stares at her reflection in the fogged up mirror. Same chestnut hair, same dusting of freckles, same hazel starburst eyes that change color depending on the light; sometimes grey, sometimes green, sometimes brown.

She doesn’t _look_ different… so why does she _feel_ so different today?

Rey thinks about how Kylo’s face had looked - how his voice had sounded - when he’d called her _beautiful_. How no one had ever called her that before, and how she’d never really thought of herself that way.

And also, more than anything, how much he’d _meant_ it.

A curtain on one of the other shower stalls jerks open. Out steps Tallie, wrapped in a towel, squeezing water from her waist length coppery strands.

“Morning!” she chirps, approaching the adjacent mirror.

“Morning,” Rey replies, applying some toothpaste and hastily starting to brush.

Tallie turns, eyeing Rey with a purposeful look. “So,” she says, pointedly, crossing her arms across her chest and cocking her hip to lean against the sink. “Who is he?”

Rey freezes, stomach plummeting. “Who’s… who?”

Tallie grins knowingly. “Whoever’s got you staring off into space like that, smiling like an idiot.”

Rey’s heart rate begins to decelerate and return to normal. Tallie hadn’t overheard her last night... Which is a huge relief, because Tallie was easily Hogwarts’s most notorious gossip.

Still, it takes a lot of effort for her to feign nonchalance by shrugging casually. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rey says, mumbling around her toothbrush.

“Fine,” Tallie sighs. “Keep your secrets.” She eyes Rey shrewdly. “But whoever he is, he must be good. You’re positively _glowing_ , aren’t you?”

Rey leans forward so she can spit into the sink, which she hopes will hide her furious blush.

“ _Merlin’s sake_ , Tallissan,” grumbles Jess, who enters rubbing sleep from her eyes and wearing a fluffy pink bathrobe. She shuffles into one of the vacant shower stalls and yanks the curtain shut. “Not everyone’s existence revolves entirely around _dick_.”

Tallie shrugs, unbothered, but shoots Rey a conspiratorial wink before toweling her hair off and walking past her out of the bathroom.

🎇🎇🎇

Saturday trips into Hogsmeade had been the supreme highlight of their youth. The novelty had already worn off for most of the seventh years, who now viewed them mostly with a quaint sense of nostalgia.

Unless, of course, you were Finn, who still approached everything in life with a general sense of lighthearted childlike wonder.

In Zonko’s, Rey browses shelves of merchandise while Finn tosses a screaming yo-yo. Rose giggles as she watches, gazing at him with an expression of unveiled, sappy, doting affection.

God, they were adorable. It really was disgusting.

Rey’s heart skips a beat when she spots a tall dark haired person across the way, entering Scrivenshaft’s. Kylo is alone, hands stuffed in his pockets, browsing their collection of quills, parchment and multicolored inks.

She’s so used to seeing him in his uniform that it’s jarring to see him in Muggle street clothes. Even dressed down, he still looks like an austere prince in his dark jeans, black cashmere sweater and a charcoal grey wool coat. His hair gleams in the overcast light like the glossy feathers on a raven’s dark wing, brushed back from his forehead in gently tousled waves.

How did he get his hair to _do_ that, anyway? Rey’s fingers twitch, itching to run her fingers through it. She feels an overwhelming urge to walk across the street, to go to him. Like an invisible string extending from her chest, tugging her in his direction.

Rey startles as Kylo rubs a hand at the back of his neck and turns around. He stares with a puzzled look out the front shop window, in the exact direction of where she’s standing. She hastily scoots behind a display of Nosebleed Nougat, not wanting to be caught staring.

Kylo frowns, looking disappointed. Then he exits the shop and heads back down the high street, flipping his collar up against the cold.

Rey continues on with Finn and Rose to Honeyduke’s so they can stock up on their favorites before finally heading to the Three Broomsticks. The bar is packed to the brim with Hogwarts students, and they navigate their way through the crowd with difficulty.

They head towards a table in the back with Rey in the lead, and she stops so abruptly that her friends nearly slam into her and cause Butterbeer to slop all down her front.

Kylo is there. But he’s no longer alone, sitting at a table with the other Slytherins. Zekk and Bazine are with him again, as well as Krennic and Phasma. The rest are engaged in intense conversation, chatting animatedly, but Kylo seems to have eyes only for Rey. He unabashedly returns her stare, lips twitching upward in silent greeting.

The moment ends abruptly as Finn grumps, “Rey, _move_ ,” from behind, giving her a sharp nudge forward.

They’re eventually joined by a few other Gryffindors: Norra Wexley, Tabala Zo and Zade Kalliday. Zade, who had always been a gregarious, overly familiar sort, repeatedly tries to chat Rey up about Quidditch, extending his arm across the back of her chair so he can lean more into her personal space.

It was annoying. But to be honest, Rey is barely listening to him.

She’s far too occupied sneaking covert glances at the Slytherin table, where Bazine is laughing loudly at something Kylo just said, leaning forward so she can brush her fingers against his forearm where it rests on the table.

The longer Rey watches, the angrier she feels. The sight of Bazine flirting so shamelessly with him in public makes her more ornery than a Hungarian Horntail.

Her third or fourth time sneaking a peek at them, Kylo looks up at the exact same moment and meets her gaze head on. The air around them seems to crackle with electricity, the considerable level of noise around the bar dissipating into nothingness, and Rey realizes what’s about to happen.

“I’d rather not do this now,” she tells him, stiffly. It occurs to her that she’s just said that to him _in her mind_ , nonverbally. She still has a lot of questions about their strange mental connection, which she intends to answer… but it would seem they can start by crossing telepathic communication off the list.

“Why not?”

“We’re both surrounded by people, for one.”

Kylo shrugs, seeming entirely unbothered by this. “I’d rather be talking to you, anyway.”

Rey chances a glance out of the corner of her eye at Finn, who seems totally oblivious to their silent conversation. She relaxes a little.

“Want me to take care of him for you?” Kylo asks, jerking his chin in Zade’s direction. “Definitely more brawny than brainy. Doesn’t seem like the type who can take a hint.”

“I’m perfectly capable of handling him myself,” Rey sniffs, taking a sip of her Butterbeer.

“Oh,” Kylo tells her sincerely. “I have no doubt. But I’d love an excuse. I’ll behave myself, I promise. Maybe just some slugs out his nose? Or some disgustingly long toenails?”

It’s truly a hilarious image, Rey has to give him credit. But she’s not ready to grant him the satisfaction just yet.

“I’m not sure where you’d find the time,” she says, airily. “Seems like you already have your hands full.” Her gaze bores a hole into the striking girl beside him, so intensely Rey’s surprised she doesn’t burst into flames on the spot.

Actually, she probably shouldn’t do that. She’d heard someone accidentally blew up their aunt like that once.

“Bazine?” Kylo asks, looking surprised. “No, there’s nothing there. Never has been.”

Rey says nothing. She just sits there, radiating skepticism.

“There’s nothing _there_ ,” he repeats, emphatically. “As in _nothing inside her head_ , Rey. She’s a useless, frivolous, superficial debutante.”

“I’m sure she has other _admirable_ qualities,” Rey says icily. Bazine was undeniably gorgeous; regal and sophisticated in a way that she most definitely was not. Maybe Kylo really did think she was beautiful, like he’d said. But there was no way she could compete with _that_.

The absolute worst thing about this stupid connection between them was the way it allowed him to read her like a book. Rey feels a wave of her own insecurity ripple across the bond, and his expression turns unbearably gentle.

“You have no reason to be jealous,” Kylo tells her.

Rey sits back in her chair, cheeks flaming. This was _humiliating_. She absolutely refused to have this conversation. Especially not here of all places.

 _Fuck this_ , she thinks impulsively, grabbing a shot of Firewhiskey off the table and downing it, grimacing slightly at the burn followed by a familiar sensation of warmth spreading through her. She registers a shout of protest from Finn, then mutters something about going to get another round.

Rey can see from her peripheral vision that Kylo is getting up from his own table and following her up to the bar. _Dammit_. Because _of course_ he was.

“Do you believe me?” his voice echoes through her mind, his ridiculously broad frame radiating heat from behind her like a giant sandalwood scented furnace.

“I’m not jealous,” Rey grits out, eyes trained forward, jaw clenched.

Kylo raises an eyebrow. “Clearly.”

“I’m _not_ ,” she persists, hotly.

“Okay,” he tells her in an amused, placating tone. He was enjoying this entirely too much.

Rey whirls around to face him. “Oh, and _you’re_ not jealous?” She feels their mental connection snap shut like a rubber band and realizes belatedly that she’s actually speaking out loud. But she can’t bring herself to worry too much about it. Crowded as the bar is, it’s unlikely their friends can even see them.

Kylo merely shrugs. “I know that’s not what you want,” he says, gesturing toward the Gryffindor table. He's still maddeningly calm in that way that makes her want to throttle him. “If you wanted to be with someone like that, it would have happened a long time ago. It’s not like you haven’t had opportunities.”

He’s not wrong about that. She’d been asked out on a few dates, mostly by other Gryffindors… various Hogsmeade weekends, the Yule Ball in their fourth year. Rey had never been able to put her finger on it, but it never felt quite right with any of them. It had never felt…

… like how it felt with _him_.

Kylo is looking away from her now, staring fixedly at the bar. “Still,” he says quietly, hand flexing on the wooden surface. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to hex him for even thinking about touching you.”

Rey registers the inherent possessiveness of his words. She knows she should tell him that it’s none of his business, that she can do anything she likes with anyone she pleases, that she doesn’t belong to him…

But she doesn’t say any of that. Instead, she finds herself asking, “Can you... Do you want to meet me somewhere? I know a place… A private place. Where we can talk.”

Kylo does meet her eyes, finally. He gives her a slow burning look that tells her _talking_ is the absolute last thing on his mind. And, Merlin help her, it takes every ounce of her self-control not to slam him up against the bar and start snogging him in front of everyone.

“I’ll be there. Just tell me where and when.”

🎇🎇🎇

Rey had stumbled upon the Room of Requirement in her fourth year, during an ill-advised late night trip to the kitchens beneath the invisibility cloak. She’d very nearly been apprehended by Argus and his infernal toothless cat – would have been, too, if not for the door that had miraculously appeared in the wall. 

Rey still visited the room from time to time, mostly when she needed a place to be by herself. It looked the same as it always had, with its towering piles of books, corked bottles of old potions, Remembralls, Fanged Frisbees, an old grandfather clock that didn’t tell time correctly, a collection of dilapidated and musty old furniture.

Generations worth of keepsakes and memories from Hogwarts students. Things that were precious. Things that were forgotten. Things they wanted to be kept secret.

Now it would house one of her secrets, as well.

She’d asked Kylo to meet her on Monday, having promised to spend Saturday evening with Finn and Rose and needing to devote all of Sunday to catching up on homework. Waiting those forty eight hours had been torture, but Rey had forced herself with a great deal of difficulty not to cave and ask him to meet her sooner.

She does want to be alone with him, very badly. But she also doesn’t want to seem desperate.

Still, that doesn’t stop her heart from tapdancing like a Tarantallegra Jinx and her stomach fluttering like a hoard of recently hatched doxy eggs when she sees him waiting for her on the seventh floor corridor, studying the tapestry that depicts Barnabas the Barmy training trolls for the ballet.

Rey watches Kylo surreptitiously as he roams the Room of Requirement, taking it all in with an expression of silent bemusement. Everything is still and quiet, except for a low flicker from the torchlights and a fire burning brightly in the stone hearth.

She turns around, facing away from him, feeling unaccountably nervous. She’d already had his tongue down her throat – had _orgasmed_ in front of him, for Merlin’s sake – what was left to be so nervous about?

Kylo’s voice breaks the silence. “If I come over there,” he asks, conversationally, from a safe distance, “you’re not going to curse my nose off or something, are you?”

Rey smiles, despite her nerves. “I think it’s safe for the moment. But no promises.”

She hears his footsteps as he moves closer, stopping just behind her. Rey jumps when she feels large hands settle of either side of her waist.

“Easy,” he murmurs.

Slowly, cautiously, Kylo wraps his arms around her from behind, pulling her snugly up against him.

No one has ever held her like this. Rey tenses momentarily, mostly from surprise, before helplessly melting into him.

His chest is strong and solid beneath her back, his firm but gentle hold comforting rather than constricting. There is an undeniable feeling of _safety_ , surrounded by his warmth and his woodsy, earthy scent, his broad shoulders curved around her like a protective shield.

Their height difference is such that he rests his chin atop her head, comfortably. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Hi,” he says simply.

“Hello.”

Rey has the sense that Kylo is waiting for her to speak first. She had asked him to meet her, after all.

She clears her throat awkwardly. “I’m… sorry,” she says, “About that night, after detention. When I pushed you away. I know you were hurt by it.”

He’s quiet for a long moment before he asks, “Why did you?”

Rey sighs, not even knowing quite where to begin. “I’m not good at this stuff… _physical_ stuff…” She swallows thickly, then continues, “You know what my life was like, before I came to Hogwarts. I’d never even _hugged_ anyone til I was…”

Rey trails off, not able to finish. Because it would mean admitting the thing she’s most afraid of. The possibility there’s something inherently _wrong_ inside of her. The possibility that she’s broken, defective.

Kylo’s arms tighten, as if he can sense how difficult it is for her to talk about this. He hunches forward, lowering his head so he can rest his cheek next to hers. “Thank you for telling me,” he murmurs, words muffled against her shoulder.

Another silence passes before he says, finally, “I’m sorry, too. It was wrong to take your memories without your consent. I knew it was wrong, and I did it anyway.”

Rey blinks. Never in a million years did she think she would hear Kylo Ren _apologize_ for something, least of all to her. But, it would seem her entire life was surprises lately. “So, why did you do it?”

“Because, I…” He pauses, now sounding a little embarrassed himself. “I wanted to know more about you, I guess. I was curious.”

Rey huffs out a derisive laugh. “And you couldn’t just _talk_ to me, like a normal person?”

Kylo shrugs. “I thought you didn’t like me.”

“I didn’t really, back then,” she admits. The significance of the words _back then_ hit Rey with a sudden forcefulness, a realization of just how much things have changed between them.

The significance of it doesn’t seem to be lost on Kylo, either.

“And now?” he asks, voice pitching lower into a husky tone. He tilts his head so he can nuzzle into her, lips brushing across her pulse point.

“Now…” Rey sighs. “I think you might be growing on me.” Then she adds, sarcastically, “You know, like a fungus.”

Kylo grins against her neck. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He places more soft lingering kisses, lavishing a spot below her jaw with attention. It’s impossible not to go completely boneless in his arms, to lose herself to sensation, overcome with strange but undeniable feelings of familiarity and _rightness_.

Then, suddenly, Rey remembers.

“I saw this,” she tells him. “That night. In the mirror.”

Kylo’s warm breath tickles her earlobe. “I saw something, too.”

It’s a testament to how intensely curious Rey is that she manages to ignore what his mouth is doing long enough to ask him, “What did you see?”

She can _feel_ his satisfied smirk as he whispers, “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

He really was insufferable. Rey twists around in his arms, turning to shoot an annoyed glare at him. But she doesn’t even get the chance, because immediately he is kissing her.

Massive hands grip either side of her face, anchoring her to him. Rey parts her lips on a gasp and Kylo wastes no time in licking his way inside her mouth, feasting on her like a starving man. Like he’s been thinking about doing this again just as much as she has.

Rey responds immediately and enthusiastically, standing up on tiptoes so she can fling her arms around him, twisting her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. His hands begin roaming up and down her back, hungrily, possessively, holding her flush up against him, like they can’t get close enough.

They stumble forward blindly, wrapped around each other like a pretzel, until the back of Kylo’s knees hit the edge of an old couch and he topples backward onto it, dragging Rey down on top of him. She lands straddled across his lap, knees bracketing his hips.

Rey decides she is most definitely _not_ finished kissing him yet, yanking his face back to hers and keeping it there until they both need to surface for air, panting desperately into each other’s mouths as they rest their foreheads together.

“This little fucking _skirt_ ,” Kylo growls, gripping her thighs and sliding his hands up until they disappear beneath her uniform. “Makes me _crazy_.”

“Really?” Rey asks, amused. “Rose and I always joke Hogwarts designed them to encourage teen abstinence. They’re so scratchy and ugly.”

This startles a laugh out of him. He’s gazing up at her looking happy, relaxed. Nothing like his usual permanent scowl. So different, like this, when it’s just the two of them.

“You’re funny,” Kylo says, eyes soft with something that can only be described as _fondness_. “And smart. And fearless. And sexy…”

His lips reattach themselves to her neck, and Rey tilts her head back to give him better access. “And you…” she says, a little breathlessly, “are…”

“Devastatingly handsome?”

“I was going to say an arrogant _knob_ , but…”

Kylo nips playfully at her in warning. “Brat,” he whispers. His hands travel further up under her skirt, and Rey lets out a surprised little squeak when he grips firmly onto her ass so he can haul her roughly against him.

They both freeze as the movement brings her wet, throbbing center directly on top of the very noticeable bulge in his trousers. Rey gives an experimental roll of her hips, and they both groan at the much needed friction.

“Careful,” he tells her, voice strained. “You keep doing that, I might not be able to stop.”

“Maybe I don’t want you to stop.”

This is a dangerous game she’s playing now, and Rey knows it. But there is a part of her – some dark, secret part – that likes the danger, the forbiddenness of it, that wants to watch as the entire world burns and then revel in the destruction.

Rey rolls her hips again, slowly, deliberately, and watches with fascination as Kylo’s expression darkens. His fingers dig into her ass cheeks to the point of bruising, clamping down so he can maneuver her against him, grinding her torturously along the length of his hardness.

Once they establish a steady rhythm, his hands leave her ass in favor of a new mission. “This needs to come off,” he mutters, long fingers deftly attending to the buttons of her school issued white blouse before practically ripping it off of her.

He doesn’t even bother with removing her bra, merely pushes the straps down her shoulders and impatiently yanks the cups down to expose her bare breasts.

Kylo stares, transfixed. He brings his hands up to grasp the firm little mounds, which fit perfectly in his palms. He groans as his thumbs stroke across the rosy nipples and they immediately harden into tight little buds, her skin breaking out in gooseflesh.

He leans forward to bury his face in them, licking a stripe up the valley in between, swiping his tongue along the curved underside… before finally latching onto the peak of one and sucking it into his mouth. 

Rey let’s out a hoarse shout, arching her back and grinding even harder down onto him. Her reaction sends him into a frenzy and he zeroes in on her poor, overly sensitive nipple - flicking his tongue across it, grazing it sharply between his teeth - before pulling off with a lewd wet _pop_ and switching to the other one.

The combination of his mouth on her and the delicious friction down below is so good – _too good_ – and Rey thinks she probably could come just from this. But it’s still not enough - not what she really _needs_ \- and she feels like she actually might _die_ if he doesn’t give it to her.

“More,” she begs him in a needy, high pitched whine that she barely recognizes as her own voice. “ _More. Please._ ”

Rey hopes he understands what she’s asking. And it seems like he does, because Kylo seems to lose his mind a little, flipping her onto her back so he can stretch her body lengthwise across the couch.

Kylo situates himself between her legs, gently guiding her knees apart, and Rey tries not to squirm as he stares fixedly at the place where she’s already wet and aching for him.

“Jesus,” he says, voice like gravel. “You’re _soaked_.”

Rey tries to come up with a sarcastic retort, but it quickly turns into a startled moan as she feels him tug the crotch of her underwear aside, the tip of his middle finger stroking along the slickness at her entrance.

“Look at what a mess you are,” he tells her, sounding immensely satisfied. “What’s got you so riled up, hmmm?”

Rey puts on her very best attempt to scowl at him. “You _know_ what.”

“Can I tell you something?” Kylo asks. Rey doesn’t respond, because she suspects he’s going to tell her anyway. “Watching you touch yourself was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I touched myself again the next morning,” she tells him, boldly. “Every day since then. In bed, in the shower... Got off thinking about you.”

Kylo hums appreciatively, gliding his finger up to circle her clit before bringing it back down to dip into her entrance again. “You and this gorgeous little pussy are the only thing I’ve been thinking about all day.”

He pushes his finger inside barely an inch before easing it out, then easing it back in again, going further each time, gradually working her open. Rey whimpers and begins tilting her hips up, trying to take him deeper, and each time she does he draws back a little, teasing her.

“You are a _bastard_ ,” she tells him, hating the way her voice quavers with need. 

Kylo smirks mischievously, pulling his finger all the way out before pushing it back in along with another one, up to the third knuckle. Rey throws her head back, a horrible and embarrassingly desperate sound clawing its way up her throat.

“Better?” he asks as he begins fucking her with his fingers in earnest, building a steady rhythm.

Rey nods, biting her bottom lip to keep herself from moaning. His fingers are so much _bigger_ and go so much _deeper_ than hers and it feels exactly as good as she imagined.

When Kylo subtly crooks them upward, brushing against her front wall, she jolts. It’s a spot she’s never been able to reach doing this on her own, although she’s heard other girls talk about it. As soon as Kylo registers her reaction he begins pounding into it insistently, repeatedly, with focused precision.

Rey has barely adjusted to the intense feeling when he leans forward and puts his tongue on her, flicking it ruthlessly against her clit, and any and all attempts to hold back her noises fly completely out the window. She’s babbling like a banshee, a mindless string of _oh my god_ and _you asshole_ and _fuck you_ and _fuck me_ and _holy shit_ coming out of her mouth.

Rey’s orgasm sneaks up on her, with an almost disturbing level of force. She comes with a long, guttural wail, limbs trembling, the inner walls of her cunt clenching like a vice grip around his fingers. Kylo eventually lets up with his tongue but continues to stroke gently inside of her, working her diligently through the aftershocks.

While Rey recovers, panting and shivering, Kylo removes his fingers and sucks them clean. Then he busies himself with licking at her skin, lapping up the evidence of her arousal that dripped down to coat her thighs, like he doesn’t want to waste any of it.

Rey props herself weakly up onto her elbows so she can look at him. “How are you _so good_ at that?” she demands, not really having decided whether she’s angry about it or seriously impressed.

He seems to barely hear her, face still burrowed into the delicate flesh of her inner thigh, occupied with deliberately sucking a bruise there. “I read a lot.”

Rey laughs, because it’s just such a _him_ thing to say. Kylo turns to give her a warm, genuine smile, and something about the sight of him looking up at her like that from between her legs makes Rey’s heart stutter.

“Stop looking so pleased with yourself,” she grumbles.

Kylo grins even wider, positively radiating smugness. “Not a chance.”

Rey rolls her eyes, but not with any real malice. He can look as smug as he likes, frankly, when he makes her come like _that_. “Get up here,” she says softly, reaching a hand out towards him.

Kylo moves to bring himself eye level with her, propping up on his forearms to keep his weight off. He’s so unbelievably, unbearably handsome, and in that moment Rey wants nothing more than to wipe that smug smile right off his beautiful face.

She reaches down between them to undo his trousers. “You don’t have to…” he begins to say, but Rey ignores him, reaching inside his underwear to pull out his already semi hard cock.

Kylo lets out a strangled noise when she closes her fingers around him. She gives a few experimental strokes, loving the way he twitches and swells in her hand, marveling at the softness of his skin there in contrast to what feels like solid steel underneath.

He’s _big_ when fully hard – a good seven or eight inches – and Rey realizes she never really thought about exactly what she was going to do once she got to this point. She just dove in, head first, without a plan, like always… but her total lack of experience in this area makes her suddenly lose confidence. 

“Show me what to do?” she asks him, voice sounding uncharacteristically shy and uncertain.

Kylo reaches down and takes her hand, pulling it away from him, and for a second she thinks he’s going to stop her. But then he’s bringing her hand up near his face, turning so he can press a kiss into her palm.

It’s a chaste, sweet gesture, but the illusion of innocence is shattered when he flattens his tongue and licks all the way up to her fingertips, coating her hand with his saliva. He places it back on his erection, completely businesslike, and it’s all so gloriously filthy that Rey just stares at him, open mouthed for a second.

He raises an eyebrow as if to say, _Got a problem, princess?_ and Rey decides to take it in stride, tightening her hand into a fist and stroking him firmly up and down his length, squeezing a little around the tip, swiping her thumb across the head.

Kylo puts his hand over hers, guiding her, showing her the right pace. She watches him, paying close attention, cataloging his reactions. Rey knows she must be doing something right, because it’s not long before he’s grunting and snapping his hips forward, rutting desperately into her hand.

“Rey,” Kylo warns her. “I’m close.” Rey hums in acknowledgement but doesn’t stop touching him. She picks up the pace, moving her wrist a little faster. “Rey,” he says, more urgently. “Rey… _Shit_ … I’m going to come...”

His eyes are wild, almost panicked. Like he’s off the rails without any breaks, and there’s nothing he can do to stop the impending collision, to avoid the wreckage.

“It’s okay,” she tells him. “I want you to.”

And she really, _really_ does. She wants to make him feel as good as he made her feel. She wants to see that composed mask of his crumble to ashes and watch him fall apart again.

He’s a goner after that. Kylo finishes violently, burying his face in her shoulder and letting out a string of profanities so colorful it would make Peeves the Poltergeist blush. His spend comes out in thick, warm spurts across Rey’s bare stomach. No longer able to hold himself up, he collapses on top of her, trapping a sticky, sweat soaked mess of skin and clothing between them.

Kylo shifts his weight to the side, trying not to crush her. Rey sighs contentedly, twining one of her legs around his and threading her fingers through his soft hair, feeling the tempo of his heartbeat as it thrums against her ribcage.

They lay in comfortable silence, basking the in the low hum of their shared afterglow, when suddenly Rey snorts, bursting into an abrupt fit of giggles.

Kylo props his head up from where it’s pillowed on her chest, cracking one eye open. “What’s so funny?”

“I just realized,” Rey tells him, wiping tears from her eyes, “that this is the most ridiculously hideous couch I’ve ever seen.”

Kylo tilts his head, examining the ancient upholstery they had so recently defiled. “It’s not so bad,” he says mildly, eyeing the garish fluorescent orange and purple paisley pattern. “I’m kind of fond of it, actually.”

His expression is serious, but his lips are twitching up at the corners, eyes dancing with mirth. Rey snorts again, breaking into more giggles. Kylo lays his head back on her chest, shoulders shaking slightly as he laughs deeply along with her.

The sound echoes off the walls, filtering through Rey like warmth and sunlight. Even better than Firewhiskey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Star Wars References:**   
>  [Norra Wexley](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Norra_Wexley)   
>  [Tabala Zo](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tabala_Zo)   
>  [Zade Kalliday](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Zade_Kalliday)
> 
> **Harry Potter References:**   
>  [Zonko’s Joke Shop](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Zonko%27s_Joke_Shop)   
>  [Scrivenshaft’s Quill Shop](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Scrivenshaft%27s_Quill_Shop)   
>  [Butterbeer](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Butterbeer)   
>  [Hungarian Horntail](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Hungarian_Horntail)   
>  [Firewhiskey](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Firewhisky#:~:text=Firewhisky%20is%20an%20alcoholic%20drink,Old%20Firewhisky%20and%20Blishen's%20Firewhisky.)   
>  [Yule Ball](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Yule_Ball)   
>  [Room of Requirement](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Room_of_Requirement)   
>  [Remembrall](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Remembrall)   
>  [Fanged Frisbee](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Fanged_Frisbee)   
>  [Tarantallegra](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Dancing_Feet_Spell)   
>  [Doxy](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Doxy)   
>  [Barnabas the Barmy](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Barnabas_the_Barmy)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Chapter 6, where we see Kylo act upon some of his darker urges and Rey embrace her identity as a sexual chaos gremlin... 😈
> 
> I also come bearing extra gifts!
> 
> We finally have a mood board, which I am more-than-a-little obsessed with 😍
> 
> I've created a playlist, which you can listen to [here](https://soundcloud.com/user-42562652/sets/heart-of-darkness). Many of the songs on there inspired this fic, and I often listen to it while I'm writing. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy. Thanks so much for reading! 🦁 ❤ 🐍

Rey is not accustomed to having secrets.

Normally, she considers herself an open book. The type of person who says what she means and means what she says, entirely unfiltered.

Now she walks around with the knowledge there’s a part of her life her friends don’t know about. It feels less and less like a burden and more like a flickering candle, a quiet flame glowing brightly inside her chest, filling her with warmth every time she thinks about it.

Rey had spent most of her life training herself not to want things. If you didn’t allow yourself to _want_ , then you could never be hurt or disappointed. When things were lost, or when they never even materialized.

Now that she had experienced it – the wanting, the _having_ \- she felt the urge to keep her secret close, to protect it. Like some special object wrapped carefully and stowed away atop the highest shelf, or a box of chocolates hidden beneath the floorboards. Something special that was just for her, and for her alone.

More often than not lately, Rey found herself smiling so much that the muscles in her face ached. Maybe it was selfish, but she wanted to _keep_ that feeling, all to herself. It was too new, too precious. She wasn’t ready to share it with anyone just yet.

Despite her happiness, the whole thing wasn’t without… _complications_.

Hogwarts students had always tended to date within their Houses, and now Rey understood why. With separate dorms, separate common rooms, separate tables in the Great Hall, it was a challenge to spend time with anyone outside of your own House when not in classes.

It also didn’t help that Rey spent most of her down time with Finn, whose hatred of all things Slytherin bordered on irrational. Rey knew there was very good reason for it; with a Muggleborn mother and a father who had died fighting in the war, it was completely understandable why he would detest pureblood supremacy and everything the First Order stood for.

But Rey was having an increasingly difficult time associating those hateful views with the person she had come to know over the past several weeks. It wasn’t just the fact that he was rudely large and ridiculously attractive, or the fact that he knew how to make her body sing like a finely tuned musical instrument. Very much to her own surprise, Rey found that she actually _liked_ Kylo. She liked his sharp wit, his wry humor, even that arrogant smirk of his that made her want to slam him against the nearest wall and shut him the hell up for once.

It had been three days since that night in the Room of Requirement, and Rey hadn’t spoken with him since. It was impossible to get him alone, surrounded as he often was by other Slytherins. And she had no way of getting him a message asking him to meet her again.

This shouldn’t have been such a problem, considering covert communication was possible with their mental bond. But, to Rey’s immense frustration, the bond had gone completely silent. Like most forms of magic - that mysterious unknown Force which held the world together - it had a mind of its own. And, apparently, a very twisted sense of humor. It could be used by witches and wizards, channeled for specific purposes, but never forcibly compelled.

Still, Rey tried. She laid in bed each night, scrunching her face up in concentration, but to no avail. She’d even snuck out one night to visit the Restricted Section in the Library, poring by wand light over every volume she could find on Legilimency and Occlumency. There was nothing; nothing that could explain what had opened the strange psychic link between them.

There was also nothing on how to close it, and Rey found herself feeling oddly relieved. Like she had come to accept Kylo’s constant presence beneath the surface of her consciousness, even felt comforted by it. Like she was finally known and understood by someone. Like she was really being _seen_ for the very first time. Like he was a missing piece, finally slotted into place, always meant to be there.

Seeing Kylo constantly but not being able to touch him felt like a slowly creeping sense of madness. Rey found herself wondering if he was feeling as frustrated by it as she was, and she very much suspected that he was. Every look felt heated, charged. The space around them crackled with such a visceral, palpable sense of tension that Rey was surprised other people in the room didn’t seem affected by it.

It all comes to a boiling point in Defense Against the Dark Arts on Thursday. Jyn has them run through drills of both offensive and defensive spells which might show up on their NEWT exams before splitting them up into pairs for practice with dueling.

Rey gets paired with Zade, much to her chagrin. She’s really not sure where he gets off having such boisterous confidence, considering his footwork is all wrong and his spellwork is sloppy. Rey anticipates every single move he makes with practiced ease, blocking him with careless flicks of her wand, feeling positively bored. She could fight this fool with one arm tied behind her back.

She shoots out a Stinging Jinx and Zade predictably fails to react in time. It hits him, grazing like a whip crack along the outside of his upper arm.

“ _Ouch_!” Zade bellows, shooting Rey a filthy look. “What’d you do that for?”

“You’re supposed to _deflect_ it,” Rey tells him, voice tinged with annoyance. Did this complete imbecile really not know anything about how dueling works?

“I’m not about to hit a girl,” he grumbles, still scowling moodily and rubbing at his arm.

“Very gallant of you,” Jyn says, watching them from where she leans casually against the chalkboard. Zade puffs up with pride, but then rapidly deflates when she adds, “You would also be very _dead_ , had this been a real conflict. Rey is more than capable; she doesn’t need any favors. You do both her and yourself a disservice.”

Rey smirks, and Zade slumps in on himself miserably like he’d been hit with a Shrinking Charm.

“Let’s find you a more suitable partner, shall we?” Jyn tells her. “Zade, switch places with Norra, please.”

Zade crosses the room to stand at the opposite end, and Rey realizes with a rapid increase in heart rate who her new partner is.

Kylo stands across from her, already posed in a defensive stance, wand raised and at the ready. His eyes are roaming over her, lingering brazenly as they make their way down her body. Like it’s the first time he’s allowed himself to openly look for days, and now he wants to gorge himself on her. But the look is also calculating, appraising; like he’s sizing her up as an opponent. His eyes snap back up to her face, and something about the predatory nature of it makes Rey _throb_ with desire.

“Ladies first,” he murmurs, lips quirked up in a sarcastic little smirk.

Rey narrows her eyes and glares at him before rearing back and shooting a Stunning Spell with all the force she can muster.

He jumps out of the way and she keeps coming after him, sending out spell after spell as he outruns her with those stupidly long legs. Her magic makes contact with the walls instead, shattering a glass display case and sending objects flying off of bookshelves. Several other students squeal with terror as they scamper out of the way to huddle together in one corner.

They circle each other, eyes locked, until Rey points her wand toward a pile on Jyn’s desk and shouts, “ _Oppugno_!” It immediately transforms into an army of sharp little paper daggers, hurling directly at Kylo’s face. He stops them with a well-aimed _Confringo_ , showering the classroom in an explosion of what looks like confetti.

His reflexes are fluid and almost catlike, moving with undeniable grace and agility for such a large person. Rey can’t help thinking about that night in the Forbidden Forest, when they’d fought together against the Chimaera. It suddenly occurs to her that the way Kylo fights – controlled, deliberate, but with such passionate ferocity – is the exact same way he approaches _other_ things, as well.

She can’t afford to get distracted, however. Rey redoubles her efforts by sending a Bat Bogey Hex in his direction – one of her specialties – and he readily responds with his own _Petrificus Totalus_. Rey manages to dodge and it flies across the classroom out the open window, hitting a bird perched on a nearby tree who immediately goes rigid and topples over with a shrill chirp.

He’s not coddling her. Not treating her like some weak, pathetic thing simply to be admired. He’s giving back every ounce as good as he’s getting from her. Challenging her, regarding her as his equal. And it’s such a damn turn on Rey can hardly stand it.

She snarls and lunges forward at the exact same moment he does. They end up meeting in the middle, each of their wands pointed directly at the other’s jugular.

Kylo’s mouth stretches slowly into a wolfish grin; an enthralled, ravenous look which Rey finds herself readily returning. In that moment she doesn’t give a damn about the fact that they’re in a classroom surrounded by other students. All she can think about are the various scenarios running through her head, each one more explicit than the last, calculating every single available surface where Kylo could grab her by the waist and bend her over and…

Someone clears their throat pointedly, and it’s like getting a bucket of ice water dumped over her head.

Rey backs away from Kylo, cheeks flaming as she realizes every single person in the room is watching them with their mouths hanging open.

“I think that’s enough for today,” Jyn says, eyes twinkling with amusement. “Well done, everyone. Class dismissed.”

The rest of the class files out but the two of them remain, still caught in the spell of staring at each other. Kylo takes a step toward her, opening his mouth as if to say something, before Jyn cuts in. “Rey, hang back for a minute please.”

Then she turns to Kylo. “You did well,” Jyn tells him.

He nods in silent thanks. An awkward silence settles and Jyn raises an eyebrow, a polite but clear dismissal. Kylo frowns, but still backs away and packs his bag in resignation, giving one final look back at Rey over his shoulder as he departs.

🎇🎇🎇

Jyn offers to give Rey private weekly lessons in preparation for the upcoming Auror tryouts, which she gratefully accepts… although her mind is definitely elsewhere.

Rey leaves the DADA classroom feeling so sexually frustrated she can barely walk or think straight. She ends up ducking into the third floor girls bathroom, locking the door so she can masturbate furiously in one of the empty stalls.

Slumping weak-kneed onto the bathroom floor, Rey decides that enough is enough. She spends the weekend formulating a plan, which she sets into motion the following Tuesday.

She waits on the edge of the first floor corridor hidden beneath the invisibility cloak until she sees Kylo on his way to Transfiguration. She tiptoes forward and reaches out, gripping his hand tightly so she can drag him unceremoniously into a nearby supply closet.

It’s dark and cramped, lined with shelves full of cleaning supplies, piled with boxes stacked haphazardly in one corner. Perhaps not the most ideal location for what she has in mind, but it’s adequate enough to fit two people, and Rey suspects she’s not the first Hogwarts student to use it for this exact purpose.

Was _this_ why Finn and Rose were showing up late for everything constantly? It suddenly made so much sense now.

Kylo looks like he might have a heart attack as she casts a quick _Colloportus_ and then pulls the cloak off, tossing it aside somewhere on the floor.

“Rey, what the _h—_ ”

She doesn’t even let him get the words out, clamping a hand on the back of his neck and pulling him down for a bruising kiss.

Kylo hums in surprise, but his body reacts instinctively. “Nice to see you, too,” he murmurs, grinning happily against her lips as he sheds his school robes and begins to make quick work of unbuttoning her blouse.

Within minutes he’s all over her, squeezing her breasts and mouthing at them through the fabric of her bra and sucking marks all over her chest, clutching her to him in a way that seems almost desperate, and it all feels so incredible that she’s already starting to lose herself in it.

 _Focus_ , Rey thinks, sternly reminding herself that he is _not_ in charge right now and casting a nonverbal spell to push him harshly back against the wall.

It’s an aggressive move, but Kylo doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest. There’s a momentary flash of shock before his face takes on a dark, hungry look, pupils blowing out into massive dark orbs, and it reminds her viscerally of his reaction the night she’d slapped him.

That night, she’d felt like a mouse caught in the deadly eyes of a snake. But now she is an equal predator, sizing up her prey, contemplating all the very pleasurable ways to destroy him.

Rey advances and kisses him again. This time it’s like she’s fighting a war, lips and teeth and tongue her deadly weapons. She’s grabbing onto fistfuls of his shirt, tugging at his lip between her teeth, raking her nails across his scalp. Licking, biting and scratching at every part of him she can reach, with a violent intensity normally reserved only for dueling or the Quidditch pitch.

“Take your _bloody_ pants off,” she practically growls at him, wrestling off his uniform tie before dropping her hands to yank impatiently at the fastenings of his belt buckle.

Kylo glances toward the door. He begins fishing around in his pocket for something - his wand, probably to cast a Silencing Charm - but as soon as he finds it Rey plucks it deftly from between his fingers, setting it atop the nearby pile of boxes.

He raises an eyebrow in silent question, but she merely puts a finger to her lips in a universal _be quiet_ gesture before dropping to her knees in front of him.

There’s something she’s been wanting to try, ever since he’d given her that mind-blowing, bone-melting orgasm. Rey had managed to get him off as well, of course, but didn’t really feel like she’d fully paid him back in kind. She didn’t like being outdone, not in any area – and it seemed this kind of thing was no exception.

Kylo’s brain seems to be having trouble catching up with his body, because he keeps staring down at her with a confused, dumbstruck look until she makes her intentions absolutely clear by pulling both his pants and his boxers down to free his cock.

It really is a thing of beauty. The way it curves, springing up from a neatly trimmed patch of dark hair. The ridges and veins covered by soft, velvety skin. The flushed color of it, a shiny bead of precum collecting on the head.

Rey already had a sense of the size of him from when they’d touched each other in the Room of Requirement. But seeing him like this, up close, nearly makes her eyes bug out. She’s not sure how all of _that_ was going to fit in her mouth.

As with everything, Rey was going to dive in head first… quite literally.

She was a Gryffindor, after all, and never shied away from a challenge.

Being roommates with Tallie for six years meant Rey had heard frankly more than she ever cared to about the finer points of technique for giving blow jobs. She had always considered this something of a nuisance. But now… she could practically kiss Tallie for the abundance of what was turning out to be very helpful information.

Rey remembers something Tallie had said once, about how it didn’t really matter what you did as long as you approached the task with enthusiasm. She sets out with this as her strategy, taking him in hand and extending her tongue out to stroke wetly along his length, swirling it around the tip, flicking it at the small divot on the underside of the head.

Kylo’s head tips backward against the wall with a loud _thunk_. “Holy _shit_ …” he breathes shakily, his normally low and graveled voice cracking like a prepubescent teenager’s.

Rey smiles coyly, pleased at his reaction. She spies that bead of precum again, practically dripping for her, and decides she wants to taste it. She swipes her tongue along the slit, then closes her lips over the tip and sucks it gently inside her mouth, humming with pleasure at the clean, salty, slightly musky taste of him, like it’s the most delicious vanilla ice cream come.

Kylo makes a noise like she’s physically wounding him. But one quick glance up at his face tells her that it’s quite the opposite. He’s slaw jawed, open mouthed, blinking rapidly with disbelief, like he can’t believe she’s real. 

This makes her bolder. Rey hollows her cheeks out, sucking harder, taking him in deeper, in by inch, loving the way her mouth feels so full and stretched. She bobs her head up and down slowly, licking and sucking him, stroking her hand along the parts she can’t fit.

It’s an addictive feeling, Rey thinks; being the one on her knees, but having all the power. She revels in how _responsive_ he is - every gasp, moan, twitch and shudder – all while staring down at her with an awed, rapturous expression, caressing her face and murmuring soft words of encouragement.

Rey gets into a rhythm, so focused on her task that she startles when she feels a gentle tugging at her hair. Kylo’s deft fingers work her buns free, letting it fall loose across her shoulders. He strokes soothingly along her scalp, massaging the crown of her head with a gentle pressure, and it feels so nice that Rey moans around him in her mouth.

He seems to _really_ like that, because his hips give an involuntary jerk forward, hitting the back of Rey’s throat and triggering her gag reflex.

Kylo tenses, afraid he’d made a misstep. Rey feels him start to draw backward. But she grips onto his hips tightly, holding him there.

Kylo makes a gurgled choking noise. “Rey…” he warns as his whole body begins to tremble with the effort of keeping himself in check.

Rey peeks up at him from under her lashes. She forces herself to relax, breathing calmly in through her nose, before slowly, deliberately working the muscles in her throat to swallow around him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he grits out, teeth bared, snarling like a wild animal.

Kylo’s fingers suddenly tighten and yank backward, pulling her off of him. Rey knows she must look like a debauched mess with her eyes watering, a line of drool dripping from the corner of her mouth. But she forces herself to keep looking at him through all of it… because she _really_ wants to see this.

Kylo’s fingers remain twisted in her hair while his other hand starts fisting frantically along his length. He has that same wild eyed, panicked look he had the first time he came in front of her, like he doesn’t know what to do next. But Rey parts her lips, extending her tongue out, letting him know exactly where she wants it.

This sight seems to be the thing that sets him over the edge, because he immediately comes with a feral ragged grunt, spilling himself all over her open mouth.

Rey swallows his come down like a champ and finds that she surprisingly doesn’t mind the taste. It’s salty, a little tangy, but not unpleasant. Or maybe she just doesn’t mind because it’s _him_.

Kylo collapses back against the wall, chest heaving, staring down at her wide eyed like she’d just performed a miracle.

Rey remains kneeling on the floor and licks away the remaining traces of his come from her lips, blinking up at him with a demure, innocent expression.

Inside, however, she is triumphant.

 _There_ , she thinks _. Now we’re even._

She’s so busy congratulating herself that she barely sees it coming.

Kylo's expression shifts. Darkens, like a gathering storm cloud. He lunges forward and hoists her up by the armpits, hauling her to her feet. She expects him to pull her closer, to draw her in and kiss her, but instead he grips her by the arms and spins her around to face the opposite wall lined with shelves full of cleaning supplies.

He cages her in, her back to his chest, a solid wall of muscle. Rey braces herself against the shelving unit as one of Kylo’s arms clamps around her waist while the other brings a hand up to wrap itself carefully around the column of her throat.

Kylo nips sharply at her with his teeth – up the slope of her neck, along her jaw, her ear, her cheek – taking small bites out of her. She’s that little mouse trapped in the jaws of a snake again, waiting for him to devour her. Except this time, she desperately wants to _let_ him.

Kylo’s hand leaves her waist to travel beneath her uniform, bunching up the fabric of her skirt and crushing it between them, fingers skimming the back of her thigh until finally settling between her legs. He strokes over the drenched fabric of her underwear, practically purring with satisfaction when he feels how wet she is.

“Missed me?” he asks, sounding unbearably smug.

“No, of course not,” Rey quips. Her breathless laugh transforms into a startled little yelp as his hand lands on the bare part of her ass cheek with a resounding _smack_.

“I don’t think you’re being honest, Rey. And that means you need to be punished. Don’t you remember what they taught us in school? _You must not tell lies_.”

Rey gasps as the unexpected stinging pain flares all of her nerve endings to life, sending tingles up her spine. She’s honestly not sure what’s shocked her more; that the unimaginable bastard had just _spanked_ her, or how much she’d actually _liked_ it.

“Want to know what I think?” Kylo murmurs into her neck, the low rumble of his voice making her shiver. “You want everyone to _think_ you’re innocent, but secretly you’re a dirty girl who likes getting on her knees. Only someone filthy would get this wet from sucking cock.”

She wants to say something along the lines of, “ _Fuck you_ ,” but all that comes out is a pathetic, needy little moan as he slips his hand down her front and starts touching her with those ridiculously long, talented fingers.

Rey could delude herself into thinking that physical release was her only reason for kidnapping him and dragging him into a supply closet. But the truth was, she was more than capable of taking care of that on her own. It was this – _him_ – she’d been so desperately craving.

Rey allows her head to tip back, resting where his neck meets shoulder. “I did miss you,” she admits. “A lot.”

Her voice comes out so small and quiet, barely above a whisper. Like the admission in and of itself is a delicate, fragile thing, not yet ready to be spoken aloud.

Kylo’s hand around her neck flexes in a gentle squeeze – not threateningly, but _possessively_ – and Rey whimpers as she feels the gesture echoed in the fluttering clench of her cunt. “I know, baby,” he tells her softly, lips brushing tenderly against her temple.

To her embarrassment, Rey feels her eyes well up with tears. It was such a small thing for anyone else, but it was difficult for her to admit that she’d missed him - _needed_ him - even if the need was purely physical. She’d spent her entire life training herself not to need anyone.

Kylo’s other hand moves expertly between her legs, fingers curling and dipping in just enough to stimulate her, thumb stroking in tandem on her clit. Rey begins to tremble as her release climbs, higher and higher, and she can tell how much Kylo is affected by the way he shudders against her back.

“I missed _you_ ,” he says, breath coming in harsh pants against her ear. “Missed those stunning eyes. Missed that smart mouth. Missed this hot, tight, _perfect_ cunt.”

His words push her even further toward the edge. Rey keens as she feels the intensity of that tidal wave beginning to crest, then nearly chokes on a broken sob when Kylo abruptly stops and removes his hand.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he tells her, voice sounding strained but the note of command still unmistakable. “You’re going to bend over so I can eat your little pussy until I’ve had my fill, and you’re going to stay quiet for me while I do. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?”

Rey is gasping, still recovering from the cruel denial of her release, when his hand lands another stinging slap onto her ass cheek. “ _Answer me_.”

“ _Yes_ …” She moans more than speaks it, her entire body quivering with pent up frustration.

“Good girl.”

Kylo releases her, and Rey hears a cracking of joints as he kneels swiftly to the floor. “Can I take these off?” he asks gruffly, fingers hooking to tug at the waistband of her underwear. She nods shakily - thank Merlin she'd worn a decent looking pair today - and Kylo pulls them hastily down her legs, helping her step out of them before stuffing them into his pocket.

“Lean forward for me.” Rey complies, bearing her weight on the shelves and obediently sticking her ass out, but immediately stiffens when she feels him push her uniform skirt further up around her hips, pinning the fabric between his palm and her bare ass.

She’s so wet now that it’s embarrassing, dripping messily all down her thighs, the cool air a sharp contrast to her overheated core. It’s unnerving, having someone eye level with those previously unseen parts of her, and her mind swirls with panicked thoughts about aesthetics and _odors_ and _grooming_ , things she’s never had to worry about before.

It’s also unnerving not being able to see what he’s doing back there, the world hidden from view by the falling curtain of her hair. All she has to go on are the subtle sounds of shifting movement, warm puffs of his breath against her skin. Not knowing when or where he’s going to touch her next has her on edge, every single nerve ending standing at rapt attention.

Those things all seem inconsequential, though, when Kylo grips her thighs to nudge them further apart, maneuvers her hips and tilts her ass to his liking, before leaning forward without preamble to lick a wide stripe across her cunt. His tongue feels warm and wet and inviting, a firm yet gentle pressure, and he alternates between slow licks up and down and faster side to side, groaning at the taste of her like he’s thoroughly enjoying herself.

Rey immediately regrets her decision not to cast a Silencing Charm, clapping a hand over her mouth to muffle the involuntary noises. Kylo’s mouth on her feels _incredible_ , better than anything she could have imagined, but she still can’t get herself to fully relax. He pauses in his assault to rub soothingly along her haunches, nuzzling into that crease between her ass and her thigh, placing slow open-mouthed kisses there, and eventually the tension in her muscles begins to soften.

“Do you have any idea how perfect you are?” he tells her, voice a low rasp. “How much I’ve dreamed about tasting you? How many times I’ve thought about making you come all over me while you fuck yourself on my face?”

Rey can’t manage to do anything but whimper as Kylo makes good on his word, gripping her ass cheeks in his massive hands and using his thumbs to spread her pussy open. Then he leans forward again and buries his face in her, delving further inside with his tongue.

It’s a different sensation than when he’d used his fingers - more delicate, more precise - and when he immediately hones in on that deeply buried sensitive spot, Rey gasps. Her body arches, back bowed, knuckles white from gripping the shelf ledge.

She wishes she could turn around, squeeze her legs around his shoulders, grip onto his hair - do _something_ – but all she can do from this angle is hold on for dear life and just _take_ it, take everything he’s giving her, bringing her to the knife’s edge of sanity doing things with his mouth that honestly should be _illegal_.

One of his hands reaches around to rub insistently at her clit while he relentlessly fucks into her, and it doesn’t take more than a few strokes before she shatters. Rey screams, sound muffled biting down into her own forearm - and then she is coming and coming and _coming_ \- drawn out by the low vibration of Kylo moaning along with her in shared ecstasy.

🎇🎇🎇

They skip Transfiguration.

Instead they remain tangled up in a sweaty pile of limbs on the floor of the supply closet, Rey with her legs across Kylo’s lap and her head tucked securely under his chin. His long fingers comb gently through her hair, massaging her scalp in a languid way that makes her hum with pleasure. She burrows further into his neck, sighing with contentment.

Rey feels Kylo’s arms tighten around her, and in that moment she is so safe, so small, so protected, that it makes a lump rise to her throat. She thinks about earlier when she almost cried, and her cheeks heat with embarrassment. She struggles to sit up in his lap so she can look at him properly, feeling like she needs to explain…

Whatever she was about to say is immediately forgotten, however. Because all she sees is Kylo, with his sexy mussed up hair and his constellation of beauty marks and his molten chocolate eyes, looking down at her like she’s the only other person in the universe.

He reaches out to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear, his thumb grazing lightly across her cheekbone.

“I know,” he tells her, simply.

And even without opening the mental bond between them, without saying anything at all, she finds she believes that he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Star Wars References:**   
>  [The Force](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/The_Force)
> 
> **Harry Potter References:**   
>  [First Wizarding War](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/First_Wizarding_War)   
>  [Stinging Jinx](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Stinging_Jinx#:~:text=The%20Stinging%20Jinx%20\(incantation%20unknown,scorch%20mark%20and%20causing%20swelling.)   
>  [Shrinking Charm](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Shrinking_Charm#:~:text=The%20Shrinking%20Charm%20\(Reducio\)%20is,spell%20for%20the%20Shrinking%20Solution.)   
>  [Oppugno](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Oppugno_Jinx)   
>  [Confringo](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Blasting_Curse#:~:text=The%20Blasting%20Curse%20\(Confringo\)%20is,it%20can%20even%20prove%20fatal.)   
>  [Bat Bogey Hex](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Bat-Bogey_Hex#:~:text=The%20Bat%2DBogey%20Hex%20\(incantation,in%20punishment%20by%20the%20Wizengamot.)   
>  [Patrificus Totalus](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Full_Body-Bind_Curse)   
>  [Colloportus](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Locking_Spell)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BIG THINGS are about to happen in this chapter... *wink wink*
> 
> As an aside, I refuse to accept any Hogwarts AU where the Room of Requirement is not the literal embodiment of Regina George's mom from Mean Girls... 
> 
> "You guys need anything? Snacks? A condom?" 😂
> 
> I hope you enjoy. Thanks so much for reading! 🦁 ❤ 🐍

Finn asks Rey why she wasn’t in Transfiguration. She tells him that she got caught up and had to take care of something – not a lie, _technically_ – although concealing the truth from him by omission still makes her gut twist uncomfortably.

If Finn finds her explanation suspicious, he doesn’t show it. And soon it becomes unnecessary for her to worry about coming up with better excuses, because the school term gets busier and they see progressively less and less of each other outside of class.

As the winter chill turns gradually to spring thaw, Rey begins her weekly training sessions with Jyn.

She’s admittedly perplexed when she shows up to the DADA classroom for their first appointment and is greeted not with a wand… but with a pair of trainers.

Jyn’s warped idea of a pleasant Saturday morning activity: a five mile run across the Hogwarts grounds. They jog side by side along the edge of the Quidditch pitch and the Forbidden Forest, around Chewie’s hut and the Whomping Willow, past the greenhouse and the boathouse…

Despite being talented at Quidditch and a damn good flyer, Rey rarely gets this much physical exercise. She’s wheezing by the time they end at the top of a hill near the Black Lake, collapsing into an exhausted heap on the ground as Jyn leans forward to rest her hands on her knees.

Rey curls into the fetal position, clutching at the painful stitch in her side. “Just leave me here to die,” she groans pitifully.

Jyn laughs, holding up her hand in a wordless _Accio_ as two water bottles zoom out from an open window in the castle.

She tosses one to Rey, who gulps it thirstily. Jyn sits down next to her on the grass, stretching her legs out.

“You’ll have stiff competition at the tryouts,” Jyn explains. “You’re already smarter than all of them, already better at magic. But none of that will matter much, if you’re not also stronger and faster.”

“You were the youngest ever female Auror at the Ministry, weren’t you?” Rey asks, with admiration. The Aurors were a male dominated profession; she could only imagine the obstacles Jyn must have had to overcome to raise herself through the ranks so quickly.

Jyn nods, taking a sip of water. “I was.”

“What’s it like? Fighting someone, for real?”

“It’s… exhilarating,” Jyn says. She gives Rey a sidelong glance, grinning. “A real rush. But also, dangerous. I want you to be ready.”

It’s a sobering thought, and Rey vows silently that she _would_ be ready. She doesn’t want to disappoint her favorite teacher, her mentor. She won’t let her down.

“Your spellwork and your dueling form is more than up to scratch,” Jyn adds, bumping her shoulder against Rey’s encouragingly. “Especially when you have a partner who… _inspires_ you.”

Rey blushes, realizing what - and _who_ \- she’s referring to, and Jyn’s mouth stretches even wider into a knowing grin. “That was quite something,” she prompts, eyes twinkling with mischief.

“Er… Sorry… about that…” Rey mutters, thinking upon the disastrous state of Jyn’s classroom in the aftermath of her duel with Kylo with more than a little embarrassment.

“Watching the two of you…” Jyn says, sounding almost wistful. “It reminded me of someone.”

“Who?”

“Cassian, my husband.”

Rey had no idea that Jyn even _had_ a husband, although she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised by it. Jyn was by far their youngest teacher at Hogwarts, but she was certainly old enough to be married in her late thirties to early forties.

Jyn was pretty; perhaps something like an older version of Rey herself, with dark brown hair and tawny colored eyes. But she certainly had her jagged edges, old battle scars left over from the war – some visible, others not - which Rey suspected might never heal completely.

Jyn had always seemed so driven, so focused. A pillar of strength. An absolute certifiable fortress. It had been difficult to imagine her getting caught up in some whirlwind romance.

It was much easier to picture now, seeing the positively radiant look on Jyn’s face when she talks about him.

“We didn’t like each other much either, when we met,” Jyn tells her. “But he turned out to be the bravest person I ever knew.”

Rey registers her subtle use of the past tense, and Jyn gives her a small, sad smile. “He died. In the war.”

“I’m so sorry.” Rey tries to put as much feeling as she can into the sentiment, but the words still feel entirely inadequate.

Jyn sniffs, wiping at her eyes discreetly. “I wouldn’t take back any of it, even if I could. Wouldn’t trade a single moment I got to spend with him. Although I do wish sometimes we both hadn’t wasted so much time being stupid.”

Rey listens to Jyn talk some more about her husband; how they met, their best memories together... Wondering if she could ever love – or _be_ loved, by anyone – that much.

She twists a blade of grass between her fingers when she asks, “Do you think it’s possible that some people are just… I don’t know. Too different? For things to work out between them?”

Jyn flops onto her back, staring up at shapeless clouds and a clear blue sky. “If fighting in a war teaches you anything, it’s that every person has both good and evil, light and dark. None of us can control where we come from, or what happens to us… But we do get to make our own choices. That’s what makes us who we really are.”

“It’s all just so… complicated,” Rey sighs. Wishing that, for once, things in her life could just be simple. But also knowing simultaneously that simple things were rarely worth the effort.

“It’s only as complicated as you make it,” Jyn shrugs. “There’s a fine line sometimes between hate and, well… you know.” She turns to look at Rey, and her gaze softens. “Only you can decide how you feel. Just don’t wait too long, Rey. Every moment you have is precious.”

“I won’t,” Rey promises, watching across the Lake as the Giant Squid lifts one of its tentacles, basking lazily in the sun.

🎇🎇🎇

She and Kylo fall into a bit of a routine, after that.

Rey finds herself vising the Room of Requirement more frequently. _Just to make sure it’s still there_ , she tells herself. _Just to see if the magic is still working_.

But, really, it’s because she’s secretly hoping to bump into him there.

And she does, more often than not.

Rey thinks it’s more than just the universe aligning in their favor. That maybe – just maybe – he wants to bump into her, too.

It starts out with both of them in various states of half undress, exploring each other frantically with hands and mouths and fingers. Seeking an outlet for their insatiable physical need whenever they can fit it in between classes.

As time goes on, however, these meetups become such a regular occurrence that their physical encounters no longer seem like the main event.

… Or, perhaps just not the _only_ event.

They both take to doing homework in the Room during their free period lunch or sometimes after dinner, rather than in the Library or their respective Common Rooms.

On a Thursday evening in March, Rey sits sprawled across the hideous old couch - which she has to admit, is actually _quite_ comfortable - with her legs resting in Kylo’s lap.

He has a book balanced on top of her knee, completely engrossed in his copy of _Unforgivable Curses and their Legal Implications_. Magical Law, Rey had discovered, was Kylo’s chosen profession.

She reaches an arm out toward Kylo’s bag where it rests nearby – the Room had recently added a beat up old coffee table, several squishy armchairs and a mismatched set of decorative throw pillows to their cozy little corner – and plucks one of the napkin-wrapped morsels he’d managed to filch from dinner.

“I wonder if we could ask the Room to give us snacks, seeing as it’s been fit to provide us with everything else?” Rey muses, taking a bite from a miniature treacle tart – her favorite.

“Mmm. Don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Food is an exception to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration,” Kylo murmurs distractedly, turning a page in his book before scratching behind his ear with a quill.

He has his glasses on again, which he grumpily insisted were _only for reading_ the first time she’d seen him wear them. Rey can’t help but smile as a warm glow – something that feels very suspiciously like _affection_ – blooms throughout her chest.

“I’m surprised the Sorting Hat didn’t put you in Ravenclaw,” she tells him, gently teasing. “Brainy as you are.”

Kylo looks up at her then, taking off the glasses and setting the book down in his lap to give her his full attention. “It actually almost did.”

Rey blinks, thinking she’d misheard him. “What?”

“It gave me the choice,” Kylo tells her. “Between Ravenclaw and…”

“…and you chose _Slytherin_?” Rey cuts across, goggling at him in disbelief.

Kylo shrugs. “It felt like the right decision at the time.”

Rey sets her own book aside now, stretching her arm across the back of the couch and tilting her head to lean against her hand. “I suppose your whole family is in Slytherin, then?”

Kylo barks out a laugh, shaking his head ruefully. “God, no. My mom, my uncle… They’re all Gryffindors. Except for my grandfather. He was, well… I’m sure you know who _he_ was.”

Rey doubted there was a single student at Hogwarts who _didn’t_ know the legend of Anakin Skywalker, a powerful dark wizard who eventually adopted the name Lord Vader. Founder of the First Order.

She did know. And yet, on some level, Rey had already decided that it didn’t matter. Not to her.

“My whole life, people have told me I’m just like him,” Kylo continues, staring down at his hands in his lap. “I was always a quiet, moody kid. When my magic started manifesting it was… violent, temperamental. And then there were… other things. Like the snakes.”

“Snakes?” Rey asks, blankly.

“They would… find me,” Kylo tells her, shifting uncomfortably. “Whisper things.”

Rey raises an eyebrow. “You can speak Parseltongue?”

It was not a common magical gift. Moreover, there was not a single wizard in history with the ability to communicate with serpents who _hadn’t_ eventually gone dark.

He nods. “My mom was devastated. Like it had finally confirmed her worst fears about me. My uncle convinced her the best thing would be to ship me off to Hogwarts, where Obi Wan could keep an eye on me. And that was right around when… when _he_ left.” Kylo flexes his hand, balling it into an angry fist at the mention of his father. “They were already arguing a lot. I think he resented being the odd man out, the only normal person in a family full of wizards. And then everything else on top of that was just too much for him. Having a freak for a kid.”

Rey can picture it. This sad, seven-year-old version of Kylo. Completely alone, confused and frightened about who and what he was becoming. Blaming himself, thinking it was all _his_ fault that his family had fallen apart.

She feels a rush of protectiveness, immediately followed by anger toward his family. They had abandoned him when he needed them most. Isolated him when they should have been reaching out, offering support. Kylo may have had a more comfortable childhood than Rey in terms of material wealth and creature comforts… but the truth was that he, too, had been neglected.

Rey looks at the adult version of him now sitting across from her. His head is bowed, shoulders slumped. Curled in on himself, like he’s steeling for her reaction. As if he’s afraid she’s going to turn her back on him, just like everyone else. Seeing him look so small and dejected make’s Rey’s heart hurt.

He chances a peek at her out of the corner of his eye, but whatever fear or hostility he had expected to find there is clearly absent. Kylo exhales, looking visibly more relaxed. “I guess I was just tired of fighting it, you know? Figured it was better to embrace what I am, rather than try to be something I’m not. Accept the inevitable.”

Rey had no idea what it was like living up to such a daunting family legacy. But she did know a thing or two about people pre-defining her. She feels the urge to reach out, to comfort him, even knowing based on her own experience there’s nothing she could do or say to make it better… But seeing Kylo in such obvious pain and not doing anything about it was unbearable.

Which is why she decides to confide in him her deepest, darkest secret.

“The Hat gave me a choice, too,” she tells him, quietly. “It… It said I would have done well in Slytherin. But I chose Gryffindor.”

This was something Rey had never shared with another living soul. Not even Finn and Rose. But for some reason, now, in the moment, it felt right to share it with Kylo.

He tilts his head to the side, considering. “I think… that makes sense,” he says slowly.

“How so?”

“You are cunning, ruthless in your own way. You’re a survivor. A person who excels despite every shitty, unfair thing that’s happened to them. Like a flower busting through a crack in the sidewalk, flourishing against all odds.”

Kylo’s assessment of her and the very earnest way in which he delivers it makes Rey blush. “Waxing poetic now?” she teases, attempting to lighten the mood. “Maybe the Hat should’ve put your sentimental ass in Hufflepuff.”

Kylo’s lips quirk up. “Oh, you think so?” he asks, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Mmmhmm. Definitely.”

Rey’s hum of assent quickly transforms into a fit of giggles as Kylo leans across the couch to pounce on her. He tickles along her sides as Rey squeals with laughter, squirming to get away.

She distracts him by offering a bite of her tart before taking another one herself, sighing happily as she chews. “Why _have_ you been plying me with so many sweets lately?” she asks around a mouthful. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“You’ve been skipping a lot of meals,” Kylo mumbles, suddenly very interested in his book again. “With exam prep, and Quidditch practice.”

 _He’s_ the one blushing now. Rey can see it in the way the tips of his ears are turning pink where they peak out beyond his hair – a trait she’d noticed recently and finds ridiculously endearing.

She takes the book from him, tossing it several feet away into one of the nearby armchairs. “What aren’t you telling me?”

The blush is getting deeper, spreading onto his cheeks. Kylo fidgets nervously. “When I was in your mind… the first time...”

“Oh, you mean when you forcibly accessed my private thoughts without my consent?” Rey interrupts with mock severity, enjoying the way it makes him squirm. 

“Yes. That.” Kylo winces. “I saw a memory. You must have been really young. Before you came to Hogwarts. You were on your bed, and you were…” He swallows. “You were crying. Lying awake, desperate to sleep. But you couldn’t. Because you were hungry, and your stomach hurt.”

Rey knows the exact moment he’s referring to. It had been her lowest point, during her time placed with Unkar. When he’d made her spend entire days doing brutal labor in the junkyard and never bothered to stock the fridge, never even left money for her to fend for herself. She’d had to resort to stealing, when she wasn’t able to rely on the charity of strangers.

“I never want you to be hungry again,” Kylo says, finally, voice quiet but ringing strong with a sudden fierceness.

No one has ever looked at her the way he’s looking at her now, with such an intense combination of softness and brutality. Like he would stand between her and all of life’s unkindness if he could. Like he would gladly destroy anyone or anything that tried to hurt her.

Rey stares back at him, completely stunned. Her hand flops weakly into her lap, the now forgotten tart falling to scatter crumbs all over the floor.

How had she never realized how incredible he was? Kylo had been so willfully misunderstood by everyone - most of all by her - and Rey doesn’t know how she possibly could have spent so long being so incredibly stupid.

All she knows in that moment is she doesn’t want to spend another second without him.

Rey crawls into Kylo’s lap and kisses him deeply. It’s unlike any other kiss they’ve shared... slow, unhurried. A low, smoldering ember rather than a blazing brushfire. Less of a race to a specific outcome and more of a desire in that moment to simply be as close as possible.

Rey rests their foreheads together. “Thank you,” she whispers, cradling his face between her hands, stroking her fingers along the stubble at his jaw.

Kylo reaches up to loosen the ties holding her buns in place – something he _really_ liked doing, she’d noticed. He runs his fingers through her hair, lifting the chestnut strands away from her neck and fluffing them forward around her face. “My lioness,” he says softly.

Something loosens inside Rey’s chest. A weight she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying around… Merlin knows for how long.

It grounds her, centers her. Like an iron chain that was tightly knotted, now slowly unfurling itself, link by link, anchoring her to him. And Rey realizes with a sudden swell of emotion that maybe she could… that she might… that she _wants_ …

A loud creaking noise prompts them both to abruptly look behind, where a large four poster bed – which most _definitely_ was not there before - had suddenly materialized. The bed is massive with a sturdy carved oak frame, draped hangings, and a soft looking expanse of fluffy white pillows and bed linens.

Rey whips back around to look at Kylo. He raises an eyebrow with interest, mouth stretching into a wide grin. Her huff of surprised laughter quickly transforms into startled shriek as he hauls her up over his shoulder like she weighs nothing, carrying her swiftly across the room and depositing her onto the mattress.

Undressing each other is a tedious process, both of them unwilling to disconnect their mouths for even a second. They laugh as they fumble blindly with buttons and zippers, tugging impatiently at waistbands and hemlines, articles of clothing tossed haphazardly onto the floor.

It’s the first time they’ve been completely naked in front of each other. Rey has insecurities about her body, just like anyone. With her small breasts, narrow hips and athletic build, she hardly considers herself a seductress. But it’s difficult to worry about any of that, with Kylo looking down at her like he just won all the gold in Gringotts.

“Do you have anywhere to be?” he asks, fingers brushing along her calf as he peels off her knee sock.

“No.” Rey bites her lip, openly admiring him as he sits back on his heels, cock already fully hard and ready for her, hanging heavily where it juts out between his thighs.

“Good,” he murmurs, placing a soft kiss onto the inside of her ankle bone. “I want to take my time.”

They’ve done this a few more times since that very memorable afternoon in the supply closet. And as good as it felt the first time, Rey decides she likes it this way much better: with him on his stomach and her lying flat on her back.

She likes being able to watch his dark head moving between her thighs, to hear his satisfied little moans and grunts as he nuzzles his nose against her clit and laps voraciously at her center.

Rey had been entirely unsurprised to discover that Kylo is a fast learner, quickly catching on to what she likes - what she _needs_ \- in order to reach that peak of pleasure, and it’s not long at all before she feels herself about to orgasm.

She’s also unsurprised by the way he approaches this particular task with totally unbridled enthusiasm. Kylo grips her hips in his massive hands and lifts them off the bed so he can fully bury himself in her, a rough and deeply satisfied noise in the back of his throat as she comes hard all over his face.

She expects him to ease up, to draw back once she’s very obviously finished… but instead he _keeps going_. Nerves completely raw and oversensitized, Rey nearly cries with exquisite agony when she feels two - then _three_ \- of his long, thick fingers slip easily inside her with no resistance.

“I can’t… _I can’t_ …” she gasps, arching off the bed and twisting her fingers in his hair so tightly that it must be painful. Not really sure at this point whether she’s trying to push him away or pull him closer, whether she’s urging him to keep going or begging him to stop.

“You _can_ ,” Kylo says roughly, pinning her back down onto the mattress with his forearm. Despite Rey’s helpless little whimpers of protest, he continues pounding his fingers into her mercilessly… before closing his lips over her clit and starting to _suck_.

Sometime later – possibly one long moment, or half an hour, or several blissful sunlit days – Rey reaches down to run her fingers through Kylo’s hair, scratching her nails gently against his scalp.

“Just making sure you can still breathe down there,” she laughs, breathlessly.

“I’d live down here, if you let me,” Kylo tells her, placing one final kiss onto her clit before crawling back up the bed on top of her.

His mouth and jaw are still shiny, coated with her release, and Rey finds it surprisingly to be quite a turn on. She pulls him down for kiss, moaning at the taste of herself, evidence of the time and effort he’d dedicated to making her come. 

Rey wraps a leg around him for leverage and then flips them over so she’s on top, straddling his waist.

“How are you so _strong_ for such a tiny person?” Kylo grumbles. But he seems utterly content as he settles himself back comfortably against the pillows, happy to let her do with him as she pleases.

She lets her hands roam possessively over the ridges of his chest and abdomen, enjoying his soft rumbles of pleasure at her touches, the way his muscles twitch and contract beneath her fingertips.

Another part of him gives a _very_ noticeable twitch against her backside, and Rey quirks an eyebrow at him with interest.

She scoots back a little so she can properly align herself and Kylo’s eyes roll back into his head as she begins to move, muttering a curse and digging his fingers into the bed sheets.

It feels _so much better_ doing this without the unnecessary barrier of clothing. Rey can feel the heat of him, the softness of his skin, the most incredible feeling of friction as she rubs the entirety of his length against her, coating him with slickness.

“Rey…” Kylo says. They both moan as she tilts her hips at just the right angle and the tip of him catches and slides along the slit at her entrance.

“ _Rey…_ ” he tries again, valiantly, sounding strained, like each word requires tremendous concentration and effort. “Do we need… I don’t have…”

Rey finally understands what he’s asking. He looks so adorably concerned that she leans forward to kiss the tip of his nose. “Madame Kalonia taught us how to brew contraceptive potions in fifth year.”

“Oh,” Kylo says, brow furrowing slightly. “I guess we don’t have to worry about that, then.”

Rey rushes to explain, suddenly feeling like she needs to. “I started taking one every month, just so I would be ready whenever… you know…” She blushes. “But I’ve never done… _this_ … with anyone before.”

“Neither have I,” Kylo tells her, a little shyly.

“Really?”

“I never wanted anyone but you.” He says this like it’s the most obvious thing in universe. But to Rey, it’s as if the entire world has tilted on its axis.

“I want you, too,” she says, the words forming without even a moment’s thought or hesitation.

Kylo reaches up to touch her face, his palm curving gently around her cheek. “Have me,” he tells her, fervently. “I’m yours.”

He looks divine spread out beneath her, like a sacrificial offering before a goddess, a look of such utter devotion on his face that it makes Rey’s chest feel like it might explode.

She balances herself, palms splayed against his chest. Rey bears her weight down, gasping as she feels the head of him notch and push further inside, breaching her fully.

Kylo remains very still, giving her time to adjust, and Rey can only imagine the level of restraint it’s costing him. She pushes down a few more inches, an uncomfortable stretch, then winces when it’s immediately followed by a sharp pinch.

“Go slow,” Kylo tells her. “Take your time.”

When Rey thought about losing her virginity, she had always imagined being more of a passive participant. But Kylo had given her all the power, all the control.

He was letting her decide her own destiny. Letting her claim it – claim _him_ \- for herself. On her own terms.

Rey looks directly into his eyes. “We’ve wasted enough time,” she tells him, fiercely.

They both cry out in unison as she slams her hips the rest of the way down, sheathing him fully inside her.

He feels impossibly huge, even in comparison with three of his much larger fingers. The sensation is overwhelming, stretching and filling her insides to their absolute limit.

Despite being the one in control, she still feels completely vulnerable, exposed. Split wide the fuck open as she sits herself on his cock. Distantly, Rey begins to register a faint buzzing in her ears, a slight flickering in her vision, and realizes her whole body is violently trembling.

Kylo sits up, still inside but pulling her closer to him, chest to chest. He rubs his hands soothingly up and down her back. Dots kisses across her mouth, both cheeks, her eyelids. Murmurs soft endearments against her skin. Eventually, the shaking stops.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers.

And the thing is, he _does_ have her. More than Rey even thought was possible. More than he could ever truly know.

“Okay,” she says, shakily. “I’m ready. We can move now.”

Kylo falls back against the mattress, taking Rey with him. She starts out slowly, rolling her hips to adjust to the dull ache of him stretching her. Pain gradually turns to pleasure as her insides begin to relax and soften, small zaps of lighting tingling up her spine as she grinds her clit against his pubic bone.

“You look so good riding me,” Kylo tells her, shaking his head almost like he can’t believe it. Staring dazedly at the place where he disappears inside her. “So warm. So _tight_ … Jesus… Rey… _Fuck_ …”

Rey can only moan in response, feeling him from the inside grow and swell and pulse. She tries desperately to take in more of him, lifting her hips to drag his length along her inner walls, until the muscles in her thighs start to shake from exertion.

“Can you take more?” Kylo asks her, voice fraying around the edges like his control is about to snap.

Rey nods frantically, biting her lip. Kylo moves her easily, clamping both hands onto her waist to set a steadier rhythm. He groans at the sound of their skin slapping together noisily, her breasts bouncing wildly as he maneuvers her up and down on his cock.

“ _Oh…_ ” Rey gasps as he angles perfectly and hits that sweet spot. “There… right… _there_ …”

Kylo does it again. And again… and again. Grunting with exertion as he slams her down onto him, bending his knees for leverage so he can snap his hips up to meet her.

“Is this what my good girl wants?” he demands, rougher than gravel and darker than sin. “Wants me to fuck her hard and deep?”

“Fuck _, yes!”_ Rey practically sobs. He reaches a hand up to thumb against her clit and she feels her inner walls start to flutter, cunt so stuffed full of him she can barely even clench. 

“Gonna make you come for me again,” Kylo promises. “Want to feel it all around my cock. Then I’ll come inside you. Make you mine, fill you up.” A hysterical little noise burbles up her throat as his other hand lands a light slap against her ass cheek. “Is that what you want?”

The thought of him filling her is enough to send Rey spiraling into oblivion. She throws her head back and _screams_ , not even bothering to care whether the Room is magically soundproofed.

Rey’s back arches. Her toes curl. Stars explode behind her eyelids as tingling pleasure radiates out from the place where they’re joined to permeate every single part of her, from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes and every space in between.

Kylo lets out his own ragged _“Fuck…”_ as he watches her come undone on top of him. He reaches up to reverently touch her face, traces a thumb across her parted mouth, dragging at her bottom lip.

Rey collapses forward onto his chest when she can’t hold herself up anymore and Kylo takes over, thrusting up into her and groaning nonsensically about how perfect she is, how good she feels, how gorgeous she looks when she comes…

Kylo’s pace stutters. He gives one final hard thrust, driving in deep and holding himself there, and Rey moans with satisfaction when she feels the slow, wet warmth of him twitching and spilling inside of her. 

They cling together, panting, like two castaways after a shipwreck. Rey rests her cheek against Kylo’s sweaty chest, listening to his gradually slowing heartbeat, while he strokes her hair and traces random soft patterns against her back.

They speak in hushed tones, like they don’t want to disturb such a quiet, fragile moment, and Rey finds herself thinking on their earlier conversation about the Sorting Hat. “Do you think things would have been different between us, if we’d made different choices back then?” she asks.

Kylo takes a long moment to think about it. “No,” he finally says.

“Why not?”

“Because,” he sighs, tucking her more securely against him and wrapping his arms around her like a warm, steel coated blanket. “You would be the same strong, fearless, infuriating creature. And you would still be hopelessly attracted to me,” he adds, with smug certainty.

Rey rolls her eyes at this, but she can’t help it; she smiles broadly, grinning into his chest.

“And,” he adds, in a softer, more serious tone. “Because _this_ is what I saw in the mirror.” He squeezes his arms more tightly around her as if to say, _us, this moment_.

Rey allows for that to sink in. “Do you think it shows the future?”

Kylo cranes his neck and tilts her chin up so he can look at her. His eyes are deep, fathomless, voice exceedingly gentle as he says, “I think it shows us what we want the most.”

“My whole life, I’ve been alone.” Rey’s not sure why she says it. Maybe it’s because she wants him to know that she had been wishing and hoping and waiting for him, too, even if she didn’t know it at the time. That she would gladly endure it, all of it, all over again, if she knew she would eventually find him.

“You’re not alone,” Kylo tells her, smoothing the hair back away from her face and curving his hand around the back of her skull, cradling her like she’s something precious.

“Neither are you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Star Wars References:**   
>  [Cassian Andor](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Cassian_Jeron_Andor)   
>  [Anakin Skywalker](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Anakin_Skywalker)   
>  [Luke Skywalker](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Luke_Skywalker)
> 
> **Harry Potter References:**   
>  [Whomping Willow](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Whomping_Willow)   
>  [Hogwarts Greenhouse](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Hogwarts_greenhouses)   
>  [Hogwarts Boathouse](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Boathouse)   
>  [Black Lake](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Lake)   
>  [Accio](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Summoning_Charm)   
>  [Giant Squid](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Giant_Squid)   
>  [Unforgivable Curses and their Legal Implications](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Unforgivable_Curses_and_Their_Legal_Implications)   
>  [ Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Gamp%27s_Law_of_Elemental_Transfiguration)   
>  [Ravenclaw](https://pottermore.fandom.com/wiki/Ravenclaw)   
>  [Parseltongue](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Parseltongue#:~:text=Parseltongue%20is%20the%20language%20of,an%20almost%20exclusively%20hereditary%20trait.)   
>  [Gringotts](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Gringotts_Wizarding_Bank)


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